SG: Saga of the new Alterran Empire: Book 5 Into the fold
by Malicious World Builder
Summary: This is the fifth book in the saga I am writing. I suggest you read the first four before reading this one. With the war on Earth finally done it is time for the Alterran Empire to prepare for things to come. Meanwhile the new Destiny expedition finds itself stuck on a world doing their best to repair Destiny. This Book will be most setup and preparation for things to come.
1. Chapter 1 Fixing Destiny

**A/N:** Please do leave a review so I might know what you think about the direction I'm taking the story in. Now enjoy this Friday surprise.

-Doctor Rush. Eli's awake,- Lieutenant Johanssen said through Rush's radio.

Rush was sitting in the control interface room trying to restore power to Destiny's sensors. He had spent several days trying to sort it out but Destiny refused to power up anything but the most basic systems.

"Thank you Lieutenant, I'll be there shortly," Rush replied. He transferred limited control to a datapad he had lying on the console before taking the datapad and leaving.

He walked through the corridors of Destiny until he reached the infirmary where Johanssen was tending to Eli. Both Sergeant Greer and Chloe had been allowed to leave a few hours before, but Eli was still lying on one of the beds.

"How are you feeling Eli?" Rush asked.

"I'll let you two talk," Johanssen said. She walked past Rush and out of the infirmary.

"You're not going to complain about me crashing Destiny?" Eli asked. He was slightly surprised,

For the first time in a long time Rush smiled. "I've had time to analyse the data you had. I've run simulations and so far about one in a million results in Destiny arriving here."

"You mean that I should be proud?"

"In even fewer simulations we survive if Destiny makes it. So I am proud that I've taught you so well about Destiny."

"Right. So you're fine with Destiny crashing?" Eli asked.

"No, but it is better than any other outcome that the data allows. Everyone is alive and Destiny is relatively intact. So far this seems like a safe place, now we just have to repair Destiny. Brody and Volker are already trying to replace some of the more damaged systems with the replacements we brought from Atlantis."

"TJ says I need at least a week more before I'm allowed out of bed."

"That's not an issue Eli, your head is the part that's useful." He handed the datapad to Eli. "You can access most systems from the datapad. Try to get any systems that's offline back online without blowing anything up or electrocuting anyone."

"I'm in the infirmary Rush. Are you really going to give me work?"

"Of course, everyone is doing what they can. You have a few broken bones but your brain is still working. Chloe is helping out with calculations and Greer is leading a hunting party. They've found some sort of elk that tastes kind of good."

Eli picked up the datapad. "I'll see what I can do."

"Good."

-Doctor Rush. Lieutenant Scott and the shuttle is returning from the mining planet with the first harvest,- someone said over the radio.

"Looks like I have to go," Rush said.

"Fine. I'll see what I can do about our systems," Eli said while Rush left the room.

Eli looked at the datapad that Rush had given to him, it was one of the new data pads they had brought from Atlantis and his fingers were itching to work. He pulled up some diagnostic tools and began to flicker through the data he had to work with.

###

When Rush arrived in one of Destiny's larger storage rooms, a room that had been inaccessible due to a large hull breach along the entire side of the outer wall, Colonel Young and Lieutenant Scott were both waiting for him with a large metal crate standing between them. Behind them Brody and Volker were working on the only piece of technology in the room, a dark grey cube roughly a meter across.

"Ah Rush, can we finally see what this miracle machine can do?" Young asked.

"If Brody and Volker have installed it the way they should we can do it," Rush said. He walked up to the crate and opened the lid. Inside lay thousands of balls mined by the drones they had deployed on one of the rock planets.

"Alright we're done," Volker said. He flipped a switch and the machine lit up.

"Now what?" Brody asked.

"We feed it. It is in essence a self building factory, the larger it gets the bigger things we can have it construct," Rush said. He took a handfull of balls and dropped them into a funnel on the side. A screen next to the funnel lit up after a few seconds, Rush inserted a storage drive and several items appeared on the screen. He pressed one of them and entered some settings before the screen shut down, they could all feel the heat and hear the humming that was coming from the machine as it began to work. Both Young and Scott looked sceptical until the humming stopped and a hatch opened on one side. A small tray moved out of the machine towards Rush, on top of it lay a small metal coil that Rush picked up and handed to Brody. "Is this what you needed?"

"What's that for?" Scott asked.

"The still, with everyone running around outside I imagine Lieutenant Johanssen will need some alcohol to distill wounds," Brody answered.

"So what can we do with this? Food? Water? Clothes?" Scott asked.

"It can reform any matter we put into it into another form. But it does not yet have the power to turn matter into other matter, you want something out of iron you need to give it iron. So yes we could use it for food and water but the results might not be pleasant."

"What Rush means that there is a lot more to food than just carbon and more to water than hydrogen dioxide," Volker said, trying to answer the questioning looks Young and Scott were giving them. "We could probably create a food pill that fills all our needs for the day, but it's going to taste bad."

"Thank you," Young said.

"Let us see if we can get it to expand," Rush said. He used his hands to shuffle more of the balls into the funnel, as soon as the screen lit up he pressed a button on it. The screen shut down again and red lasers began to project lines around the machine.

"What's it doing Rush?" Young asked.

"It's marking the area it can expand to with the resources it has in storage." Rush stepped back from the machine and out of the red area on the floor.

Within a moment a shield had formed around the red area and the machine began to hum again. Within a few minutes the machine was spitting out plates and parts onto the floor, when a small pile had formed on the floor the machine shut down and small grappling arms came out of the machine. The arms began to pull apart the machine and insert the plates to expand the machine. Roughly and hour after the shield had formed the machine had expanded to fill the shield and the shield shut down.

"That's quite impressive," Scott said.

"I agree. But if we want to fix Destiny we will need a lot more resources as well as a much bigger factory than what we can house here in Destiny. We need a few hundred of these crates to create another one of these machines for the base outside," Rush said.

"Can we create more of those drones?" Young asked.

"Yes, the rest of this crate should give us enough materials to expand the machine enough. Another two crates and we can get another drone. We will keep improving the machine with the materials the drones bring. I will have something set up if anyone wants to requests something."

"Good, we should have something created to mark this planet," Young said.

"I think the mountain that Greer blew up and the new bay that Destiny carved marks this site already. But if you want we can create a plaque or something."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a statue of Destiny crashing through the mountain, but we can wait until we have resources to spare."

"That would be best."

"Let me know if there is anything you need Rush, otherwise I will leave Destiny in your hands," Young said.

"I will let you know, but as long as the Lieutenant keeps bringing back the resources the drones mine I think this will go smoothly."

"Good." Young headed for the door with Scott following behind him.

Rush walked up to the machine and opened a hatch that was sitting where the funnel had been. "Give me a hand with this." He headed back to the crate.

"Where do you want it?" Brody asked.

"Inside the machine," Rush answered. Together the three men managed to push and drag the crate over to the machine and into the space that was waiting inside the machine. When the crate was inside the machine Rush closed the hatch and the screen lit up, he choose the expansion on the screen and stepped away. Just like before lasers painted a red area around the machine and when Rush left the area the shield formed around it.

###

Back in the infirmary Lieutenant Johansen returned to see Eli sitting in the bed waving his hands around in the air.

"Eli are you alright?" she asked as she slowly approached him.

"Never been better, sure some bones hurt but working like this is awesome."

"Eli, you're waving your hands in the air, you're not working." She walked up to his bed and looked at the datapad, dozens upon dozens of windows were pressed tightly together on the small screen, she could see some of the windows change each time Eli's hands moved and clicked in the air. "Are you doing that Eli?"

"Yes, mental interfaces. I saw some people using them when we were in Atlantis, it should take a few more days before we are able to even feel these connections but Destiny's been messing with our minds already so I think we're already somewhat used to it," Eli responded.

"Are you sure you're fine?"

"Yes."

She took the datapad from his lap and placed it on the nearby bed. "Let me just take a good look at your head again."

"Come on, I'm fine."

"Then we're not going to have an issue." She pressed a button on the bed and the bed lowered down into a lying position. She brought over one of the machines sitting in the corner and placed it on the bed above his head.

"Is this really necessary?"

"Yes Eli, you have developed mental abilities almost overnight. I have to check you so that everything inside your head is where it should be."

Jack held Sam tightly to his body. They were lying naked in Sam's bed on board the Nest hanging above the wraith outpost. They could clearly hear the pulsing coming from the generator that was powering the ship.

"So what happens to all the energy that we're not using?" Jack asked.

"We're using everything," Sam answered. She turned around to face him and they felt their skin rubbing against each other.

"Surely we're not using every last drop the generator produces?" Jack asked.

"The majority gets sent into the shield, then primary and secondary systems. Any excess power is sent to charge ZPMs, given the excessive amounts of ZPMs we have stored we begun to send the excess power into the shield," she explained calmly. She saw that glimmer in his eyes, he had an idea that would surprise her.

"Do we really need to sent so much power to the shield?" he asked.

"We do not need to send power anywhere, we choose to do it because the shield is what is keeping us alive in case of an attack." She could still see the glimmer in his eyes. "Tell me what you're thinking Jack?"

"Just that there has to be something better to do with all this energy rather than waste it on a shield we barely use. We have matter converters, why not us them and the energy to create something useful?"

"Of course we could, but most of our storage space is taken up by the half full fighter bays and they need crystals that we need to program individually," Sam explained patiently.

"So we could create everything except the crystals on site here and install the crystals later?" Jack asked. He was getting more and more excited and it was very clear to Sam, Sam meanwhile was simply stunned that she had not thought about it first.

"Actually I can have the crystals created here, we could have the ship create all the fighters we need right here on board."

"And you have the hangar on the top of the ship, can we use the matter converters to build something there?" Jack asked.

Again Sam was confused by what Jack had just said, it was so simple yet no one had said anything about it. "There's some things we need to make the old fashioned way, but we can make most things here on the ship, we could create the hull, superstructure and interior right here. The only thing we really need to get created elsewhere is crystals, hyperdrive, shield emitters, some weapon components and control systems. It could decrease the time it takes to build ships from a few months to a few weeks."

"Are we talking about something like the generation ships we made for the Travelers or larger like a Cruiser, an Aurora or a Sable?" Jack asked enthusiastically.

"That would be something like a Sable, but the Auroras are mostly empty space and after we create what we can here we could probably finish the other systems in about the same time. It all depends on how much technology you want placed inside the ship."

"That's perfect, and the hangar could be used for other production as well, or at least to create raw materials."

This time Sam knew that she could shut down his idea. "Of course we could do that, but the amount of resources we can send from this ship is highly limited by the stargate. The amount we can send would do little to relieve the shortage we have at the moment, of course if we stayed above the planet that needed the resources we could use the Asgard beaming technology to sent it straight to the planet but this is a warship, it is not meant to be a factory or resource hub."

"Then we will not use it to create Iron, Carbon, water or food, nothing that we need in large quantities. We create Trinium, Naquadah, Naquadria, Neutronium and the elements that are rare, the elements we have a hard time finding."

Again he surprised her. "We can do that." She nodded thoughtfully for a few seconds. "You know what, it will take a lot of our energy production but we can create fully working Asurans by the hundreds here. If we dial down the shield to a level where it will just barely hold against the black ship or an Ori fleet then we could maybe make five hundred Asurans each day. I'd have to make some calculations to be sure, but it should be somewhere in the neighborhood."

Jack squeezed her tighter and kissed her. "See now you're starting to use that big beautiful brain of yours."

"That's the thing you think is beautiful?" she asked.

He let out a sigh before answering. "Everything about you is perfect sweetheart."


	2. Chapter 2 Seeing the base

Rush walked into the sickbay of Destiny, he moved his hand to adjust his glasses but only found the ridge of his nose. His eyesight had been fixed by the transformation in a Lantean and he was still getting used to it, he had activated the Alterran crystal but it was still far from done with its work.

The only one in the sickbay was Eli who quickly sat up when he saw Rush. "More things to look at?" Eli asked. He had been stuck in sickbay for the past few weeks and Rush had made sure to keep him supplied with tasks.

"I talked to TJ and she thinks that you can leave the sickbay today," Rush replied.

Eli almost bounced of the bed and hurried up to him. "Great. I have heard a few things about the village from Chloe."

"Compared to Destiny it is nothing, but it is a good start for a base," Rush concluded. He led Eli out of the sickbay to the closest elevator. On the way the only people they saw were a handful of soldiers patrolling Destiny. "Ground exit," Rush said when they stepped inside the elevator. Slowly the elevator began to move sideways, it picked up speed, the slowed down to change direction before moving again.

"So what is it like down there?" Eli asked.

"It is a military base more or less," Rush said shortly.

"Come on it has to be more than that."

"No, not really." The elevator stopped again and began to lower down rapidly for a few seconds before it stopped and the doors opened.

"Good work with the elevator," Eli praised as he stepped out on the grass outside the elevator. Several hundred meters away he saw timber cabins that had been constructed and behind it a single grey metal building was towering. From a handful of the cabins trails of smoke were rising but most looked as if they were empty. In silence Rush followed Eli up to the large metal building. As they came close they could both see two guards standing in front of the only door leading inside. It took a few seconds before they both recognised one of the guards as Greer who walked towards them. "Good to see you on your feet Eli. Rush has been complaining about not having your help."

"Do not lie Sergeant Greer, Eli has been just as much help from the sickbay as he could have been if he were on his feet," Rush said as he walked past Greer into the metal building.

"Well everyone else has missed you Eli," Greer said.

"It is good to be allowed to be up on my feet again," Eli said and followed Rush inside another elevator. When Eli looked out through the closing doors he could see the large metal struts that had been placed under Destiny to keep her of the ground. Without any sort of input the elevator began to lower into the ground, but only a handful of meters below it stopped and the doors opened. They found themselves looking down a tunnel of solid rock with a mix of Tau'ri and Alterran technology running along the roof and the walls, it looked a lot like a bunker to Eli. They took a few steps forward into the tunnel and saw a large container floating towards them supported by two flying bots. Rush held Eli back as the container floated past them.

"How long did this take to build?" Eli asked as they walked past several corridors leading to different common rooms, on the walls of the corridors he could see doors with the names of members of the crew written across them.

"A few days, we have automated robots running around the clock to excavate tunnels and rooms. The container you just saw came up from the mines we have started below the base, it is a good addition to the flow of resources to the base but if you remember I told you about the robots we have on another planet, that is where we get most of our resources," Rush said.

"Still this is some quick work," Eli answered.

A click was heard from Rush's chest and Eli saw the Alterran communicator that was attached there. -Doctor Rush, please report to the control room,- Colonel Young said.

Rush tapped the badge. "I am on my way with Eli."

They walked for a few more minutes and arrived in a large room filled with consoles and people running around. Colonel Young stepped out from the chaos of people and came up to them. "Good to see you on your feet Eli," Young said.

"I'm happy that TJ feelt that I could leave the ship," Eli said.

"I can understand that." Young turned around and led them through the chaos to an empty space at the furthest wall where Adam Brody and Lisa Park were working on a device embedded in the wall.

"We are ready to test it Colonel," Brody said when he looked up and saw them.

"Good work," Young said and activated his combadge, setting it to transmit to everyone in the expedition. "This is Colonel Young. Everyone who can, please report to the control room of the base in an orderly fashion. We will soon attempt to contact Atlantis."

Around them the chaos slowly faded as people began to stand in formation behind Eli and Rush.

"Can we really do this?" Eli asked.

"Yes, the subspace transmitter was intact after the landing," Rush said.

"That's great."

"Yes. But unfortunately the pieces for the new gate were destroyed during the crash."

"Mister Brody, please activate the transmitter," Young ordered.

The device embedded into the wall began to pulse with power and after a few seconds a young woman appeared in front of them.

"This is Atlantis control, how may I help?" she asked.

Colonel Young stepped forward to the hologram. "This is the Destiny expedition reporting in. We are alive and well, we would like to speak with General O'Neill."

"I will send for him," she said. She muted the sound and they could all see how she began to shout to people around her that they could not see.

"Good work Mister Brody," Rush said.

"Could you say that again?" Park asked.

Before anyone could say anything more the hologram flickered and was replaced by General O'Neill standing before them in some sort of pyjamas with a haphazardly buttoned shirt. Jack straightened up and pulled his fingers through his hair before he spoke. "Colonel Young, Doctor Rush. It is good to see that you are well and alive. We have attempted to dial Destiny several times in the last few days. I'd like to know what is going on."

"The Goa'uld left us a small surprise that destroyed the gate while we were in FTL. We have managed to land Destiny on an Earth like planet but we are grounded for the time being. We have used some of the equipment you provided to set up a small base on the planet and we have begun minor repairs on Destiny."

"You mean that you crashed to the surface of a planet?" Jack asked.

"Something like that," Young admitted. "But considering the circumstances I think we should be glad that we are alive and in one piece."

Jack rubbed his temples for a few seconds. "I will have Sam send you the blueprints for a new gate so that we can send you the manpower I promised."

An arm wrapped around Jack's arm and the hologram expanded to show Sam standing next to him. She was wearing a blue pyjamas that looked to be more in Jack's size. "I'll see to it," she said. "Doctor Rush is there anything else you need?"

Rush took a few steps forward until he stood side by side with Colonel Young. "Colonel Carter, we are halfway across the universe. I will take any tech you can send us, a couple of ZPMs and all the raw materials you can spare."

Sam nodded slowly a few times. "Resources are scarce I am afraid. But as long as you can guarantee that the data and the ZPMs does not end up in the hands of aliens I can send a full collection of Alterran technology to you as well as all the ZPMs you require."

"I will make sure to fortify this base and Destiny as best we can," Young promised.

"We will hold you to that Colonel," Jack said.

"If possible I'd like the blueprints for the Alterran holographic designers and the Alterran Naquadah generators sent over right away," Rush said. "It would help greatly in our expansion of the base if we did not have to pull cables from Destiny and her ZPM."

"Of course," Sam said. She stepped away and her hologram disappeared for a few seconds before she returned. When she did Rush had already confirmed that they had received what he asked for.

"Brody, Park, Volker. Make sure we receive the designs for the gate and put two at the top of the builder que." Rush ordered and pulled Eli with him away from the hologram. "I'll show you something we have set up."

"What is it?" Eli asked.

"You'll see." He led Eli back out a corridor and up to the corridor where the containers were crossing their path. He looked both ways before he walked down the right path, they walked in silence for a minute until they reached a large room. On one side they saw a single console embedded in a metal wall and on the other wall was a gigantic rack filled with items and a console standing in front of it.

"This is our construction hall," Rush said. He walked up to the console and scrolled through the thousands of items they could create until he found the holographic designer, one press on the screen and it began to hum lightly. While it worked he searched for the Naquadah generator. Meanwhile Eli was looking through the rack at all the items stored there.

"This is amazing, we built all this in a few weeks?" Eli asked.

"Yes, but apart from what you've seen there's not much else," Rush answered. "We have focused our resources on this machine, the control room you saw, resource collection and the struts you saw beneath Destiny. We're using wooden doors and furniture because we lack iron."

"This is still quite impressive," Eli said. He had finished his inspection of the rack and walked over to Rush just as a section of the metal wall opened up and a metal tray slid out of it. On top of the tray was a single thick pillar that looked to be waist height. From the far wall of the room a single metal slab came floating from a pile of metal slabs, it stopped in front of the tray and two robotic arms extended from it. The arms grabbed the pillar and moved it over to the slab, then the tray retracted into the machine again.

"Is this a kino sleigh?" Eli asked as he inspected the slab.

"It is an improved version of it," Rush admitted as he used the console to order a Naquadah generator. "Come over here."

"I can see that, what do you use them for?" Eli asked as he walked over to the console where Rush was standing.

"We use them to transport anything heavy. We have more than we need at the moment as you can see." He gestured for the far wall that was covered in stacks of them. "But while Sergeant Greer and his men were logging the heaviest they were needed."

Rush grabbed Eli's right hand and pressed it against the screen of the console for a few moments.

"What are you doing?" Eli asked.

"I am allowing you to override the energy restrictor of the machine, it will detect your biological signature," Rush replied. "Normally you need to have the materials required for an item but the materials can be synthesized using energy if it is urgent. I am allowing you to do that, that makes four of us who are allowed to do that."

"Who are the other two?"

"Colonel Young and Lieutenant Scott. In case there is an emergency in which you and I can not run the machine. Everyone else can put items in a queue and it will be created when the materials are available. The rack you see is what has been created the last couple of days, you have two days to pick up items before the machine will reclaim the materials. A handful of people can override the queue and send items straight to the top."

"Like Brody and Park?" Eli asked.

"Only Mister Brody, since he leads most of the engineering work they can ask him if they need an override. Then there is Sergeant Greer, Mister Volker, Chloe and some of the new people," Rush answered.

Behind Eli the metal wall opened once again and the tray came out with the Alterran Naquadah generator, after a few seconds it was moved next to the pillar on the floating sleigh.

"This is great," Eli said. He walked up to the sleigh and began to push it but Rush stopped him.

"We made a few more improvements. Come on," Rush said. He climbed up on the front of the sleigh and Eli hurried to join him. Rush pressed a button on the front of the sleigh and a retractable handle came out of the top. Rush took a firm grip of it and gently pushed it forward, slowly the sleigh began to move forward.

"You made them rideable?" Eli asked in surprise as Rush maneuvered the sleigh back into the tunnel they came from.

"Yes. It was a simple addition, but one that Sergeant Greer and his men appreciated while hunting and logging."

"I can understand why."

They moved back into the main tunnel and Rush moved them back towards the control room but turned into a side tunnel a few meters before that. At the end of the tunnel they came to a metal door that opened as they approached, when they had passed through it closed behind them and Eli saw how immensely thick the door was before it closed and locked.

"This is my private laboratory," Rush said. "Fifty centimeters of Asgard alloy and biometric sensors keeping everyone but me and Chloe out, I will make sure to add you to that list."

"I thought you said that we were short on materials," Eli said.

"We are. The alloy is made up mostly of of Carbon, with small parts of Trinium and Naquadah, the former we can get from wood and we get some of the rest from the other planet we're mining, but we had to use some energy too."

"I thought we were lacking power."

They had climbed off the sleigh and the mechanical arms had left the holographic designer in the center of the floor, the Naquadah generator was still sitting on the top of it.

"Yes, we are running low on power because we choose to create this room," Rush admitted. He was pulling cables from some of the other equipment to the pedestal.

"Young approved of this room?" Eli asked in surprise. He copied what he had seen Rush do and the mechanical arms gently lifted the Naquadah generator from the sleight and placed it next to some other equipment. He flipped open the side panel and pulled out the cable inside, he searched for a few seconds before he found a jack and plugged it in. He opened another hatch and the generator began to hum faintly.

"Yes. We have some technology that needs to be kept away from those who have no idea how to use it and we are also performing some experiments that could go wrong. Some have taken to calling it the Vault because it keeps things inside and people outside."

"Right."

Rush rose from the bottom of the pillar and focused on it, in an instant it began to glow and show a holographic Alterran interface. "Looks like it is working," Rush said.

"So what are we building?"

"We are going to plan the expansion of this base. Could you go back to Destiny and activate her full sensor suite? Turn them on the planet and give me a detailed scan of everything. And disconnect Destiny's power systems from the base while you're there, we have power here now."

"Sure I will see to it." With those words Eli walked up to where he thought the door was but it refused to open.

"Just a second." Rush focused on the biometrical sensors and targeted Eli, a moment later the door opened and Eli disappeared out through the door.

With Eli gone Rush connected the holographic designer to the central database of the base and pulled up a list of all the technology they had stored inside, with the transfer from Atlantis actively adding tech the list kept growing but Rush calmly started to design a larger lab for himself with each and every piece of useful technology placed with meticulous precision and a large area for new technology. Then he moved on to crew quarters and threw out them into an entirely new section. A few entertainment areas followed before his com badge sounded.

-I'm in the control interface room ready to shut down the power transfer to the base,- Eli said.

Rush tapped his own combadge to reply. "Go ahead." He felt the connection to Destiny vanish a few seconds later as the cable to the ship was disconnected.

-Patching you into the sensors now.-

Rush felt the feed coming from the sensors and feed it into the holographic designer, slowly the planet began to form around the design and Rush began to adjust parts of the design after the subterranean structures of mountains, roots and the likes. Then he began to focus on pockets of metals and ran an Alterran algorithm that outlined tunnels for maximum efficiency.

-Scan is running. I'm setting the short range sensors to sweep this system afterwards and long range sensors to scan surrounding systems afterwards.-

"Good work Eli. Take some time to get used to the new technology we're installing on Destiny and talk to Lieutenant Scott afterwards, have him take you with him on the next time he goes to retrieve resources from the other planet," Rush ordered.

-I will.-

In under an hour he had created an extensive tunnel network of chambers, quarters, labs and mining tunnels running below but Destiny's sensors were still slowly dissecting the planet to create a perfectly detailed blueprint of the planet.


	3. Chapter 3 Space weather

-Colonel Young, please come to my lab,- Rush's unmistakable voice sounded through Young's com badge. He was still standing in front of the hologram of Jack, but his men and Colonel Carter were no longer listening in.

"It seems you're required elsewhere Colonel," Jack said.

"So it seems General, I look forward to having a working gate soon," Young responded.

"I look forward to seeing Destiny off myself before you leave Colonel. Until that time stay safe." With that the hologram vanished and Colonel Young turned around and walked out of the control room, as he did he tapped his com badge. "I am on my way."

He hurried through the tunnels of the base until he reached the solid metal door that was blocking his entrance into the lab, he knew that he could connect to the mental interface inside the room and force the door to open but he waited patiently for Rush to open the door for him. After waiting for a minute he gave Rush a mental nudge and the door opened almost instantly.

"Come on in Colonel," Rush said.

Young took a few steps into the room and the door closed behind him, in the center of the room in front of him was a gigantic sphere, in an instant Rush manipulated the holographic designer and zoomed in on the base.

"So this is what you've been working on?" Young asked as he walked around the room. It was the first time he was inside the room and it was utter chaos, machines standing all over the place and cables running back and forth along the floor.

"It's only been an hour or two but I think it is starting to take shape," Rush answered. He pulled away the roof of the base to reveal the inside and Young came up to it and began to inspect it.

"This is a very large base Rush." Young connected to the mental interface and pulled out the numbers. "A base that can hold five thousand people? Why would we need that? Or science stations for five hundred people?"

"If this experience has taught me anything it is that we are alone out here. If anything I think it would be a good idea if we have a place where we can fall back if things go to hell again. And if we are to make an alliance with the people from Novus some of them may wish to serve with us, space will be good to have. And as you can see..." Rush focused and numbers appeared next to each room. "I have put most redundancy on a low priority, it will take years before the base is entirely finished."

"Does this take into consideration the expansion of the resource operation in the system?" Young asked.

"No it does not. Eli, set the sensors to scan the system after the sensors are done with this planet, it will take time before I can get to that."

Young frowned. "But you mean that we can use this to design an entire system?"

"In theory, but I doubt it was meant to be used that way."

"Still I think this is a good idea Rush, as you say this is our fallback point. We can use this to plan our defenses."

"Which is why I invited you here, Colonel Carter said that you are here as the military side and I as the technical side. So please design the base as you set fit from a defensive point of view." Reluctantly Rush let go of the mental interface and gave Young full access.

It took a second before Young was connected. He duplicated the design and threw one version to the side, then he went to work adding and removing tunnels to create a tactical advantage for the defenders at every turn. Then he began to rearrange and add rooms. After another few minutes and he began to place emergency bulkheads and shields in each crossing and automated turrets at every turn.

"Are you making this into a bunker?" Rush asked. He could see his design floating at the side of the room and it was nothing like what Young was designing.

"This is our lifeline and as you said this will take years, why not plan into the future?" He moved the gate room deeper into the base and kept it far away from both the entrance and the control room, treating it like both an escape route and an entry point for an attack.

"Still this seems excessive."

"Perhaps, but we do not know what we could face out there. Who might come chasing us." He returned to the shields and added two separate layers of shield emitters like those of Atlantis. Then he began to place weapon pods along the surface of the planet, both anti personnel weapons and weapons meant to take out ships entering orbit. All Rush could see was the ever rising power demands for the facility if it was ever fully activated.

"This will take centuries to finish," Rush groaned.

"Then we will need to increase our resource generation. How large of an explosion would we need to destroy this facility?" Young asked.

"I will rigg a self destruct using the generators and ZPMs," Rush said. He reconnected to the mental interface and began to place Naquadah generators throughout the facility and three ZPMs in the control room. "A setup like this will take out a large part of the planet and could potentially destabilise the orbit of the planet, in turn destabilising the entire solar system."

"That seems excesive," Young said as he added another four weapons pointing towards space.

"But that is what will happen if we need to destroy this base and make sure the technology does not fall into enemy hands."

"Then that is what we will do."

-Colonel Young, I will be heading for the resource outpost shortly along with Eli,- Scott's voice came through Young's com badge.

"Copy that Lieutenant. Make sure to take a path by the gas giant to show Eli," Young replied.

###

"System checks complete. Prepare for take off," Scott said from the pilot's seat of Destiny's shuttle. Next to him Eli was sitting in a chair. With the press of a button Scott released the docking clamps and activated the thrusters beneath the shuttle, slowly they floated upwards and a few meters up Scott activated the main engine, rather quickly they accelerated forward and left the atmosphere in a matter of minutes. Once they were free from the planet's gravity Scott activated the autopilot of the ship and stepped over to the small crate standing in the corner. He grabbed a ratio pack for himself and threw another to El who caught it.

"So why would Rush want me to go with you?" Eli asked. "Isn't this like a twelve hour flight?"

"You'll see in about four hours," Scott said and satt down back in the pilot's chair. He put his feet up on the console in front of him and pulled down his cap in front of his eyes.

"Come on Matt, what is it?" Eli asked.

"Relax for a few hours and you will see it before we arrive," Scott said.

Eli kept asking but Scott stayed quiet for four hours until they passed close to the star and they both could see what looked like a tornado reaching out from the gas giant towards the star. It took Eli several minutes to regain his composure while Scott took the controls and began to maneuver the shuttle towards the tornado like phenomena.

"What is that?" Eli finally asked.

"We like to call it a space tornado, but the scientists call it a case of hydrodynamic escape. Apparently the planet will become a Chtonian planet in a few hundred years," Scott replied. He pressed the shuttle through the tornado like stream of particles and the colorful particles danced across the viewscreen.

"This is amazing," Eli said over and over again as he first turned the sensors on the particle stream and then to the metallic core of the planet that was being left behind.

"We know, I think everyone has seen it at least once while you were in the sickbay," Scott said when Eli final calmed down.

"Why did no one tell me?" Eli asked.

"Chloe thought it was best to let you rest instead of getting you excited over it."

"Of course I would get excited, look at these readings. That is a metallic core with half the mass of Earth. We could get enough metal from this planet alone to build anything."

"I am well aware of that Eli, I spent four hours getting here in a spacesuit together with Greer only to find that the miner that Rush gave us was unable to handle the gravity and pressure on the surface, it imploded. We hope that the Alterran database has some sort of solution."

"I'm sure Rush and I could have figured something out given time."

"Of course you could have Eli, but it has only been a few weeks. We have plenty of time to get that core later," Scott said.

"I guess you're right. Why did we wait to contact Atlantis until today?"

They passed out the other side of the particle stream and began to leave the dying planet behind. In front of them their destination was starting to grow in size.

"Contacting Atlantis was a priority but Colonel Young and Rush thought that our safety had to come first, we had to gather a lot of materials to get enough for the underground base."

"That feels a bit thin."

"If you ask me I think they liked being back out here without backup, working with what was available to them. But don't say I told you that."

"No need to worry, I'll be quiet," Eli promised.

Slowly time ticked by as they closed on the planet that was their destination, when they finally reached the planet Scott took them into the very thin atmosphere at full speed, enough so that flames began to lick the outer hull plating.

"Is this really safe?" Eli asked as they began to level out.

"Yea, the atmosphere is too thin to cause damage at these speeds.

"If you say so."

A small red dot appeared on the horizon and Scott slowed down slightly as they approached it. As they came closer Eli could see the small bunker like building that was painted bright red.

Scott saw the questioning looks Eli was throwing towards the building. "Some color helps me locate it on this grey world."

"I understood that, but what is the building doing here?" Eli said.

"An air lock, otherwise we would have to be in space suites." Slowly he landed the shuttle in front of the air lock that instantly began to reach out for the back of the shuttle. A heavy thud was heard inside the shuttle as they connected and then the rear door began to open. Almost instantly the floating sleighs began to enter the shuttle and stack crates along one of the walls.

"So we have everything automated from mining to loading to unloading and processing, but we still have a shuttle being flown manually back and forth?" Eli asked.

"Rush has been insisting that he has better things to do with his time but with you back on your feet perhaps you can fix it," Scott said hopefully.

"I am sure we could program the autopilot to do it or remote control the shuttle from Destiny. We have all that setup already."

"Rush ruled that out already, there's a handful of asteroids and meteoroids circling the system. The autopilot would be unable to compensate for them and the remote control would be slightly delayed and against something like that I'm not sure anyone is willing to risk our only shuttle."

Eli simply shook his head. "I'll have this figured out before our next trip back here," he promised as the last sleigh left the shuttle, the rear door sealed and the airlock released them.

"I'll take you with me here every time then until you have a solution," Scott promised in return but Eli had already pulled out a small pen and a pad of paper and was writing notes and formulas on the paper.


	4. Chapter 4 Attack

"Colonel Carter what's our status?" Mokar asked when he walked up to her on the bridge of the Nest. Through the forward viewscreen they could see the lights of the fleet Sam had gathered, twenty Auroras, thirty five Retributors and almost a hundred upgraded upgraded Generation ships, almost their entire Pegasus fleet.

"We have received confirmation from all ships, we are good to go," Sam answered from the control chair in the center of the bridge.

"Good. We need to know what the wraith have been up to," he said as he came up next to her. To her it was strange seeing him dressed for battle with weapons hanging in holsters.

For the past year or two the Traveler generation ships had been searching through the galaxy but they were starting to enter wraith space and the wraith were responding in force each time they could, now it was time for the Alterra to strike back, hard. A few light years in front of them the generation ships had located a very large wraith outpost that was protected by a sizeable wraith fleet, but the planet itself also had several large deposits of metals that made it an even more tempting target.

"This is likely to cause a full scale war with the Wraith, are we ready for this?" Sam asked.

"I know that, I know that it would be better if we had more ships to deploy but we need more resources. We will be taking that planet today."

Sam nodded and activated a fleet wide transmission. "Prepare for a short hyperspace jump into wraith territory. Ground troops stand ready to deploy to the surface."

She waited a second before she sent the order to every ship in the fleet and they all jumped away simultaneously. They stayed in hyperspace for a few seconds before dropping out quite some distance from the planet. Four hives were sitting in orbit along with their escorting ships and they immediately began to break away from the planet. Long before the wraith ships were in weapons range the Arcturus generator was online and the Nest was fully operational.

"I will be joining our ground forces. Good luck Colonel," Mokar said.

"Likewise," Sam answered moments before Mokar beamed over to one of the generation ships.

Slowly the wraith ships approached them and Sam held back her fleet, finally the wraith began to fire their weapons but still Sam held back her fleet, only when the wraith fleet was fully committed did she turn the weapons of her fleet on the wraith. In an instant the Nest's three beam weapons began to slice through the wraith fleet, a moment later the Auroras' and Retributors' pulse cannons began to fire and pummel the wraith ships.

With a single thought Sam connected her combadge to the generation ships that had been keeping their distance far from the fighting. "Colonel Carter to ground team, you are clear to deploy."

-Copy that Colonel,- a man replied. A few hundredths of a second passed as the generation ships entered hyperspace only to appear in the lower atmosphere of the planet roughly a kilometer from the wraith outpost.

Through the viewport Sam watched her fleet tear through the wraith fleet. After one of the hives was cleaved front to back by one of the beam weapons the wraith began to launch darts but the gunners sitting in the secondary control chairs behind Sam on the bridge were waiting for them and did their best to eliminate them the moment they left the hangar, still a few slipped through and began attack runs against the Retributors in the fleet.

"Ma'am, four hundred wraith darts have successfully launched. Enemy ships are turning to protect hangar entrances," a crew member reported.

"Launch half of our complement of Wasps," Sam ordered.

"Launching wasps."

Deep inside the Nest was a series of tunnels leading from the exterior of the hull to large internal storage bays capable of housing hundreds of thousands of the small Wasps and a few thousand larger Hornets. But now they barely held a few thousand Wasps, less than a thousand Hornets and all the storage bays were eerily empty.

A few floors below the bridge of the ship a large hall was completely filled with pilot stations, but with only a handful of pilots on the ship most of the Wasps and Hornets were being flown using a very advanced Alterran auto pilot. As soon as Sam had given the order half of the Wasps rose up and rushed forward into the closest tunnel while the pilots began to pick ships for their squads. In a matter of seconds the Wasps had entered the fray to chase down the wraith darts, against the Wasps the darts stood no chance. For each Wasp that the darts managed to take down they lost ten, but some of the pilots took a more creative approach and landed their ships on the wraith hives and cruisers, then they began to fire the railguns into sensitive parts of the wraith ships.

-Colonel Carter we have deployed to the surface,- a man reported.

"Good work. I want rapports as you progress," Sam replied.

-Yes Ma'am.-

"Colonel Carter, one of the Retributors is reporting hull breaches," one man on the bridge rapported.

"Have them set a course that takes them above the hangar, once in range use tractor beams to dock them inside. Start to beam their crew onto our ship," Sam ordered.

"Yes Ma'am."

Through the viewport Sam saw one of the hives turn around back towards the planet, with a single thought she redirected one of the Nests beam weapons and cut straight through it. She focused the other two weapons on the remaining two hives and watched them exploded a few seconds later. Before her she could see the cruisers splitting up, trying to run away, but she kept firing and both the Auroras and the Retributors ganged up on them. A few minutes later debris was all that remained of the wraith fleet.

"Operations, group the ships that are in good condition and deploy them to secondary targets. Send the damaged ships back to Athyl," Sam ordered. The secondary targets were a list of wraith outposts and fleets that were badly defended and the groups would go through the list and eliminate as many as they could before they needed to go to Athyl for repairs.

Ronon was leaning against one of the large hydraulic pistons that moved the boarding ramp on the Traveler generation ships up and down. In front of him a few dozen men and women were standing, most were Travelers or Pegasus natives that wanted revenge on the wraith but a few were former SGC soldiers, most importantly for Ronon he had trained everyone of them to fight the wraith. "Check your shields and weapons," he ordered. He could see the nervousness on some of the mens' faces.

-Ready to land,- a voice announced through the ship's' internal speakers, a moment later the ship groaned and shook slightly. Then the ramp began to lower and Ronon walked down it, before he reached the edge of the ramp he was running. He jumped down on the ground before the ramp had reached the grass below and his men followed him. He looked left and right and saw the other sixteen Traveler ships that had touched down to deploy troops. A few ships to his right have saw Teyla lead her troops forward and to his left he saw Mokar doing the same. The other Traveler ships were circling above, waiting for the wraith outpost to deploy their darts.

The moment their feet hit the grass the wraith began to fire at them from the wraith outpost that was sitting at the base of a mountain and a hoard of wraith began to flood out on the plains towards them. As the blue stun bolts from the wraith began to reach them Ronon watched two blurs dashing forward and a few moments later he saw that both Teyla and Mokar were in the middle of the wraith horde fighting them hand to hand. Seeing the wraith horde closing around Teyla and Mokar Ronon pushed forward as fast as he could to catch up to and help them but it would take vital minutes. Still he held out his gun in front of him and fired as fast as he could while running forward. Behind him most of his men did the same but some of the more trained men spread out in a firing line and knelt down to provide covering fire.

In the midst of the wraith horde Teyla and Mokar were fighting fiercely in close combat, but not with their hands or with knifes or swords, on their wrists they carried rapidly firing plasma weapons that they used to cut down the wraiths at an incredible rate, enough to keep most wraith from firing at them and the few stun bolts that reached them were absorbed by their personal shields. The size and speed of the weapon meant that it was highly inaccurate and almost useless beyond a few meters. Together they held the wraith at bay while Ronon and his men were coming up to them. Using their Alterran physiology they both jumped around in the wraith horde to make sure they had something to fire on.

Above them they heard a high pitched whine. They looked up towards their right flank to see a wing of Traveler ships approaching quickly on a strafing run. In a quick dash the two broke out of the wraith horde just before the ships began to bombard the wraith horde. As soon as the Traveler ships were done Teyla and Mokar jumped back into the fray, this time joined by Ronon and the others. Unlike Teyla and Mokar Ronon's men were relying on their rifles and pistols simply because they were not equipped for close combat, while Ronon himself had pulled out his sword and was holding it in one hand with his pistol in the other. He took down hundreds of wraith in a matter of minutes but he had no chance to of taking out as many wraith as the two Alterra did. The Traveler ships came around for another strafing run, this time hitting closer to the wraith facility. Hundreds of wraiths were being thrown up into the air and their numbers were starting to get thin but still they were rushing forward towards them.

As the wraith thinned and the sounds of gunfire began to quiet down Mokar heard a loud screaming sound coming from the facility. He jumped over a few wraith to Teyla. "Do you hear that? The wraith have activated the self-destruct of the facility. Come."

Teyla spun around and gunned down a few more dozen wraith. "I will follow you."

Mokar took out a few more wraith before he turned towards the outpost and jumped up onto the outside of the wall. He grabbed a ledge and pulled himself up onto it, then he jumped again, this time up and through a thin membrane into the facility from where the wraith had been firing down. He cracked the neck of the closest wraith and began to fire down the corridor into both directions. A few moments later Teyla followed and fired her weapons as well.

Together they ran through the corridors of the facility, gunning down every wraith they found until they finally reached the reactor room where the wraith Queen was standing bent over a now dead human.

"Do you seek death?"

"Yes, yours," Teyla said calmly. She walked forward towards the queen and Mokar let her, he knew well about the rage for the wraith burning inside her. The queen reached out to feed on Teyla but her personal shield burned the queen's hand. A single thought from Teyla was all it took to force her way into the mind of the queen. The queen was young and weak and Teyla channeled all her rage into her focused thoughts. In a matter of moments she was inside the telepathic network of the wraith on the planet and she was causing havoc. With a single thought she broke the queen's mind and sent her to deactivate the self-destruct, then she began to work on the wraith drones that were still running around outside. With a few thoughts she sent them against each other, completely ignoring the Alterran forces. Another thought from Teyla ripped the free will from the queen and shattered her mind. Mokar did not have the wraith DNA that Teyla had, but he could still feel the wraith telepathy and he could feel the chaos that Teyla was causing.

"The wraith should take care of themselves, the queen is yours to study. As you wished," Teyla said when she released her mental grip of the wraith network.

A few rapports coming through Mokar's com badge confirmed that the wraith were fighting and killing each other. "Good work Teyla, I will make sure she is put to good use."

"I wish her to suffer."

"I will make sure that you can make her suffer before she dies. We will not feed her, she will suffer."

Without another word Teyla left the chamber to kill more Wraith. Meanwhile Mokar removed two halves of a metal ring from a pocket, he placed them around the wraith queen's neck and the halves locked together to form a mental suppressor. There was no way for the queen to communicate mentally or even form complex thoughts while the collar was around her neck. He tapped his combadge once and sent a mental command to the Nest that was sitting in low orbit slightly above them, the ship would need to move every few hours to stay in beaming range but it was not going to stay there for long. A few moments later he and the queen found themselves standing in the gate room of the Nest and the gate was already dialling.

After walking through the gate and beaming straight from Atlantis to the station nearby they were in the stasis labs with eight confused Asgards looking at the Alterra and the Wraith who had just arrived, but it did not take long for Thor to regain his composure.

"Why have you brought a wraith queen here?" Thor asked.

"This is our most advanced research facility, I was hoping to learn something about the wraith that we can use. But that will have to wait until you have finished your new bodies. Until then this facility will remain at your full disposal, but after that I hope that some of you will remain to help us with future research," Mokar replied. He sent mental instructions to the station and two Asurans walked in and escorted the queen away.

"Learning how to fight the wraith is something we have always sought to do, I believe that there are many who would be happy to help you with that," Nytar said. She was one of the Vanir scientists that had been working on the project.

"I will of course stay as well," Thor informed.

"That is good, but the time to make such promises is not now Thor. How is work coming along on the bodies?"

"We have abandoned the body we first used to convince the Vanir to join our cause, the one you created. It seems that the cloning process is highly unlikely to succeed and as such that is not a valid solution. Heimdall, Loki, Hermoid and myself are using those bodies now that we have no other bodies, but the wasted clones for a larger scale would not be acceptable, we lost close to a thousand bodies to have these four bodies made," Thor answered.

"Then it seems that other solutions need to be researched." In truth it was Mokar who had ordered the facility to sabotage the bodies to make sure that a proper solution was found, still knowing the predicament of Thor and his kin were in Mokar had allowed four bodies to be created.

"There are may other things we still have not tried, the issue is that the genome is growing more and more complex with each iteration," Ydar, another of the Vanir, said.

"Still there is one thing we have yet to try, something I know that you will not like," Thor said.

"As long as you do not seek to kill something I do not see a reason why I will not like it," Mokar said with a smile.

Thor nodded thoughtfully a few times before looking at Mokar, he was uncertain how but Thor looked nervous. "Are you certain?"

"Of course, the Alterra have always tried to help the Asgard. I will give what assistance I can," Mokar assured but he was getting nervous now.

Loki stepped in front of Thor and looked up at Mokar. "We wish that you seek to contact the Nox, we know that the Alterra and the Nox have not agreed on things very often but they have always had the best knowledge of nature and biology. They may be able to help us solve this were the Alterra have not."

"I see." Mokar was unsure how to feel. The Nox had been their allies once, but only because of the friendship between their two vassal races, the Asgard and the Furlings. Now the Asgard wanted to give the credit for the solution to their issues to the Nox.

He exhaled before slowly nodding, the need for a united Asgard race was more important than his ego. "I will sent a ship to meet the Nox, if they wish to help then I will bring them here. I hope that time has changed them, but you know what they felt about your cloning effort." The fact that he was feeling so angry at a race that he had actually never meet was scaring him slightly.

"If they wish not to help then it will simply take time, I am confident that the knowledge of the Alterra will be enough to help us," Thor said. He could see that they had struck a sensitive nerve.

"I am sure that we will solve it, but you are correct that the Nox will be helpful. If they wish to help," Mokar admitted. "I will see to it that they are informed." With that he beamed back to Atlantis.


	5. Chapter 5 A mistake

Daniel was sitting in a chair behind his desk in the Alterran outpost on Earth. In front of him Camille Wray was sitting in a similar chair, she was one of the few that had chosen not to go back to Destiny.

"I heard that things are finally returning to normal," Daniel said with a smile. "I also heard that you got a high position of power too."

"Position of power is not true Doctor Jackson, at the moment the political power on Earth lies very much with the Alterra. You personally Doctor Jackson has quite a lot of political power here. But all the leaders that I have talked to so far know that Earth needs to stand strong together as one. I am simply an emissary from these people to the Alterra."

"Very well. It is good that they realise that Earth needs to be united, I hope that they will all resolve it peacefully. I will make sure that we keep supplying you with materials to help with the rebuild."

"That will be appreciated, the materials and support that the Alterra have provided has allowed us to reopen mines and farms to set up our own supply lines, it will take us years to restore Earth but this is a start. But there is a lot of people looking towards the stars, now that everyone knows about aliens, spaceships and stargates there are many who wish to seek out worlds where they can make a new life. I know this is a request that you will not approve, but if possible there has been a request that the Alterra help us recover advanced technology that has been lost up to the defeat of the S.E.N. We are interested in this to speed up mining, farming and construction. We hope that this also would include the technology to build ships so that we can go to these planets and spread from Earth. We know that this may go against some ideals of the Alterra, but we only seek to recover what we have lost, not gain new things."

Daniel nodded a few times. "I will talk to Mokar about this, we are not allowed to give technology to the younger races, but we are allowed to teach. It may be possible to teach scientists what they need to make the discoveries, that could be allowed."

"Thank you Doctor Jackson. I am sure that the Alterra will make the right choice." Next to her chair she had placed her portfolio and out of it she pulled a small binder of papers. "This is another proposal for you Doctor Jackson, a draft for an agreement between the Alterra and the Union of Terra."

"Then you have settled for a name?" Daniel asked. He reached out and took the binder.

"Yes, but it is not final. We need something that looks to the future while still remembers the history of our planet," she said.

Daniel opened up the binder and began to read through it. "Do you seek to include the colonies in this government too? If so Terra may not be a good choice, it could been seen as provocative in time."

She nodded. "You are correct Doctor Jackson. As I said it is not a final name."

"Good." Daniel placed the binder on a pile of papers on his desk and clasped his fingers. "Do you know why I can already tell you that we will not accept this?"

She frowned. "No. I thought the Alterra sought to guide the lesser races. What is wrong with it, does it offer too little tribute?"

"The Alterra seek little in the way of tribute. People to help crew their ships is appreciated, but that is not the reason we will refuse this."

Her frow deepened. "Then why?"

"Because Earth does not have a unified government. Right now you represent the closest thing Earth has to a government, but it is far from including or unified. Any agreement with the Alterra can only be made to a race that we feel are united." Daniel placed his hand on a mental connection, while he could issue mental commands throughout the base it was easier with direct contact. He concentrated on a document in the Alterran database and a printed copy of it appeared on his desk. It was thousands upon thousands of pages held together by four thick metal loops. "These are the goals that the Alterra have put down for races to fulfill before accepting them as vassals."

She blinked a few times as she pulled the document of the table and held it in her hands. "Have they really set up these many goals just to make sure that the race is worthy?"

"The Alterra created these goals because they needed to be sure that it is what is best for the Alterra, the new race, the vassals of the Alterra and the universe at large. But not all goals need to be meet before the Alterra will talk about an agreement."

She put the document on her legs and began to look through the pages. Each page held a few dozen goals with numbers sitting next to them on the right side. "These goals will take a long time to meet."

"Yes. But you will find that humanity has already meet many, you have already discovered fire, mastered electricity and the likes. But some may be harder. The index numbers on the right hand side are indexes for the extended document if you wish to know more about how each goal is determined."

She nodded a few times. "I was told the Jaffa had already joined the Alterra, have they managed to meet these goals?"

"The Jaffa are not vassals of the Alterra, they are very much like Earth being helped by the Alterra to rebuild. But their progress is slower than here on Earth, they are starting fresh in Pegasus. But there is hope that both the Jaffa and the Tau'ri will be guardians of both Pegasus and the Milky Way," Daniel said.

"I see." She tried to push the document into her portfolio but resolved to putting it under her arm as she stood up. "There is one final request we wish to make. In preparation for Earth joining the Alterra we wish to invite you Doctor Jackson as the tiebreaker in the council, if you wish. Also if possible we would like it if the Alterra returned to Antarctica where we may construct a center of government together."

"It has always been our vision to return to Antarctica and leave the rest of the planet in the hands of humans, we will keep providing you with resources for reconstruction but I think it is wise to keep the resources going to reconstruction rather than new constructions."

"Of course. I hope you will consider our offer to you personally too Doctor Jackson, we can use your guidance." With those words said she turned around and left the room with the thick document under her left arm and the portfolio in the right.

Daniel waited a few seconds before he pressed the small grey button on the side of the desk. When he pressed it a screen rose from the side of the desk and the call that had been on hold for the last minute went through to the screen.

It took a second before Mokar's face showed on the screen. "I hope I am not disturbing you Daniel."

"I was in a meeting with a representative from Earth. I am happy to say that they are seeking to become vassals of the Alterra. Of course I told them about the goals they need to reach first."

"Have you calculated their worthiness?" Mokar asked.

"No, should I have?"

Mokar sighed. "Of course you should have Daniel, I would not be surprised if Earth has managed with many of the stranger requirements and if nothing else you should compare them to the Travelers that we have more or less integrated into our people."

"I will see to it right away," Daniel promissed.

"Delegate Daniel," Mokar reminded. "Has the transformation stone finished your evolution into Alterran?"

"Not yet, but I am not far from it."

"Good, I want you to bring a ship to P3X-774 and make contact with the Nox. The Asgard have asked for their help in solving the issue with their bodies."

"I will have a ship drop by to make contact with the Nox. Can I ask why we've waited so long to contact them? I thought you were allies."

"Once we were allies yes, but it was a tense alliance at best. I promise that I will tell you the story after this is done if you do not wish to read about it in the database. This is a very delicate matter Daniel, I want you personally to go there." It was not hard for Daniel to see the annoyance in Mokar's eyes.

"I will leave straight away then," Daniel promised.

"Thank you Daniel, I hope that the Nox will not be much of an issue for you, they will likely not look favourably on your transformation."

"I understand, but perhaps this long time has changed a thing or two. I will try to secure their help."

"I will be waiting in Atlantis for news."

The screen went black and retracted back into the desk while Daniel stood up and went to change into more official looking attire, something better suited for diplomacy.

"You sure this will work?" Scott asked. He was standing together with Eli in the small resource collection dome on one of the rock planets for the second time in a week. This time Eli had brought a ring transport platform with him and for the last few hours they had been assembling the platform in the center of the dome. The entire time they had watched as the mining bots entered through the secondary airlock with crates of minerals that they stacked along the curved wall.

Eli looked up from the power conduit he was working with. "The distance is far larger than what is normally possible, but we only want to send between this platform and the one back in the base so I can lock the frequencies between the two and put some extra power into them. It is not permanent but it will work for a few hundred years until the star gets in the way, but I doubt we will have this issue then." He plugged the power conduit into the dome's powergrid.

"So why not send one of the crates back first?" Scott asked.

"Because it will work. I will be back here in a minute." Eli grabbed the tablet that was lying on the floor and checked the readings from the ring platform, he changed a few things and stepped inside. He tapped the tablet and watched the rings rise around him, a second later he saw the white flash. The rings lowered around him and while they did he felt himself starting to shiver. He looked down and saw the ice that had built up on his hands, a thick white layer.

"Lieutenant Johansen come to the processing room. It's an emergency," Rush shouted into his com badge. He had been standing a few meters in front of the rings waiting for Eli. Now he watched his prodigy fall to the floor shivering as ice crystals began to form across Eli's skin.

\- I am on my way,- Tamara responded straight away.

A moment later Rush was kneeling next to Eli who was shaking like crazy, he took off his jacket and covered Eli. Then he began to punch away the thick layer of ice that was forming in front of his eyes. Next to him the processing machine came to life as Rush's panicking mind feed it instructions. Only a seconds or two had passed from Eli's arrival when he stopped shaking and remained frozen on the floor. Rush kept pounding the ice for several seconds until the output hatch of the processing machine flew open and began to spit out several orange brightly shining orbs, he could feel the temperature in the room rising several degrees in a matter of moments and the ice growing on Eli seemed to stop but by now Eli was encapsulated in a sizeable block of ice. Slowly the ice began to melt but as Rush kept pummeling the ice he felt how his own hands began to freeze.

The following minutes he kept pummeling the ice as best he could but he had to slow down as his own hands were turning white with each hit. Finally Tamara came running into the room with two other men, she jumped down on the floor next to Rush and helped him smash the last of the ice away from Eli's face. His face was frozen in a horrible scream of agony and they could see the solid ice inside his mouth.

"What happened here?" Tamara asked as she kept breaking away chunks of ice. By now the other two men had knelt down and were helping them break Eli out of the ice block.

"He was trying to use the rings to transport from the planet here, they have a maximum range that he thought he could overcome but something must have gone wrong," Rush answered. Together they lifted Eli up on one of the floating sleigh and Tamara and her men began to run with it down the tunnel, Rush gathered up the glowing orbs and followed after them. He tapped his combadge and watched one of the orbs fall and crack against the floor. "Mister Brody what is the status of the gate?"

-We are calibrating the gate,- Brody answered after a few seconds.

"Do what you have to finish up and inform Colonel Carter that we need a wormhole to Atlantis right at this moment."

"I'm not sure if we can fix this Rush," Tamara said as they turned into the main tunnel. Rush had caught up to them and was placing down the orbs around Eli.

"We need to do what we can. I will take him back to Atlantis, that's the best place to treat him," Rush said.

-We can have the gate ready in forty five minutes,- Brody informed.

"You have forty five seconds Mister Brody, Eli's life may depend on it," Rush countered. He turned to Tamara. "I will go to the gate room and assist Mister Brody." With those words Rush threw himself into a full sprint and pressed his body to the limit, he was not a full Alterra yet but he was not far from it and when he pressed his body the other three had no chance of keeping up with him. Each time he pressed off against the ground he flew several meters forward and he came rushing into the control room only seconds later. In front of him he could see Brody and an entire crew of engineers working on the large dark grey Pegasus-style gate with cables hanging out of it.

"What's happening Rush?" Colonel Young asked as Rush practically flew past him and began to work on the gate, tearing datapads from the engineers and finishing their work mentally.

"There's an emergency," was all Rush said. As he ran by Young to get to the other side of the gate he grabbed the side of Young's head in one hand, but only for a moment. That moment was all it took for Rush to transfer his memories of the incident to Young.

"I see," Young said as he hurried over the subspace communicator and activated it. It only took him a few moments to connect to the Nest and inform Colonel Carter.

Rush tore out the last cable from the gate and placed both his hands on it, then he concentrated to finish the calibration. From the tunnel they could all hear the slamming of boots against the floor and as the gate activated Tamara and her two men came running into the room with Eli.

"He's starting to thaw up, but there's no pulse," Tamara said as Rush grabbed the sleigh.

"He'll make it," Rush said. He took the sleigh from them and ran through the gate with it.

On the other side of the gate General O'Neill, Doctor Beckett and Doctor Keller were waiting.

"Let's get him to sickbay at once," Beckett said. Jack nodded once and everyone was encapsulated in a flash of color for a moment before they saw Atlantis' sickbay forming around them. An entire team of doctors and nurses were waiting for them and in a matter of seconds they had transferred Eli onto one of the medical beds and had began their scans.

Jack walked up behind Rush and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sam gave me the short story, but I would like to know how this happened."

"We were trying to automate the final piece of the resource collection, Eli took it upon himself to do it and planned how to do it. He wanted to use the Alterran rings to send the resources across the star system. He used the rings to travel from the other planet to our base. I was waiting for him when he arrived. At first everything looked fine, but he began to shiver and in a few seconds he was encased in solid ice. That was only a few minutes ago, I brought him here as soon as we could get the gate operational." He leaned against Jack and felt his legs give way under him. The room spun before his eyes before his head hit the floor of the sickbay.

"Doctors," Jack shouted as he tried to catch Rush. Both Beckett and Keller spun around and helped him get Rush up on the bed next to Eli.

"I will treat Doctor Rush," Keller said.

"Then I will see what I can do for the lad," Beckett said. He turned to Jack. "We will do what we can General O'Neill, but it would be best if you left us to our work."

Jack nodded two times. "Of course Doctor." He turned around and focused on the internal transporters of the city.


	6. Chapter 6 The Nox

The small Tracker ship that had carried Daniel to Gaia, the Nox homeworld, was setting down in the large open clearing where Daniel knew that the gate once had been standing. It had taken a few hours but they had finally found the location.

"Doctor Jackson, we have landed," the Captain of the ship reported from the control chair.

"Good, I will talk to the Nox. I do not want anyone else to leave this ship until I return," Daniel said from behind the control chair.

"Yes Doctor. Do you wish us to beam you somewhere in the surface?"

"Thank you Captain, but I think it is best if I walk to them." He sent a mental order to the ship and transported to a spot right outside the front of the ship. He took in a few deep breaths and felt the crisp air in his lungs before he began to walk forward into the woods. He walked between the trees, listening to the birds, the leaves rustling in the wind and the occasional sounds of animals moving among the underbrush of the forest. Finally he stopped on the shore of a lake and sat down in the sand. He had felt something moving along side him since he entered the forest and he was sure that he knew who it was.

"I know that your are there," he said after a few minutes.

It took a few seconds before the young Nox Nafrayu turned visible on a nearby log.

"How did you know I was here?" the young Nox asked.

"I could feel someone using mental powers, but I thought it was Lya," Daniel admitted.

"I am here as well Daniel," the disembodied voice of Lya sounded moments before she appeared right in front of Daniel. She twisted her hand towards Nafrayu who vanished. "I feel that you have changed, I do not think that you are welcome any longer here on our home."

"Yes I have changed Lya, but I do not come here seeking problems. I have been told that you did not always see eye to eye with the Alterra, but perhaps this can be a new start for the friendship between the Alterra and the Nox."

"We grow old Daniel, many of us still remember the what happened to the Furlings and no matter what happens it is still the fault of the Alterra that the Furlings are no more." She respected Daniel but her heart ached when she thought about the Furlings.

"I am sorry if you feel that we are to blame Lya, but I do not know what happened to the Furlings. Did the Alterra kill them?"

"No, the Alterra began to ascend and the Furlings followed them."

It was strange for Daniel to see the Nox cry, to see the sparkling tears roll down her cheeks. "I do not understand Lya, I thought it was a good thing to ascend."

"Of course it is a good thing, it is where evolution ends as far as we know." Through the tears Daniel saw a smile. "But not all races can survive the process of ascending, some minds shatter in the process, leaving them stuck half way through the process. Energy beings stuck in this dimension, fueled by rage. They tore through the gate network and killed all in their way. The one and only time the Nox has gone to war was to stop them. Because of the reckless distribution of knowledge from the Alterra we had to wipe out those we viewed as our own children, because of the Alterra we broke our own laws. Because of them the Furlings are dead and we had to kill them. The Alterra always meddled in things around the galaxy, but when we needed them to sort out the mess with the Furlings they refused, they vanished. I do not think it will be easy for us to forgive the Alterra, even if this is a new generation and you yourself has proven wise Daniel."

Daniel nodded and waited for the tears on Lya's face to dry before he spoke. "I understand that it must have been hard and I understand the anger you feel towards the Alterra of old. I promise you that we do not seek to make their mistakes again, we are doing what we can to make up for old mistakes. But we need your help, or rather the Asgard do. Their bodies have now failed completely, we come seeking your assistance."

She let out a light chuckle. "You mean that the Alterra come seeking our help solving something we told them would happen if the Asgard began to use clones?"

"Please Lya, do not blame us for what has happened long before we were born. We do what we can to solve these issues, but we wish for your help," Daniel begged.

She looked at him and smiled. "I do not blame you Daniel, I think it is good that you seek to solve these issues." She smiled and held out her hand towards Daniel, who was quick to grab it. In the blink of an eye she transported them into one of their cities floating nearby. Daniel saw the vines hanging from the dark grey walls and roof part as Lya strode forward. "You will speak to the Elders, they will decided what is to be done."

"I hope they will grant our request," Daniel said. He followed her deeper into the city and all the Nox stared at Daniel, the younger with curiosity in their eyes and the elder with hate.

"We will see what they think." She led him up to a solid stone wall that shifted out of the way when she placed her hand on it. "From here you shall go alone."

"Thank you Lya, I promise that the Alterra will do what we can to make up for old mistakes." He smiled at her before stepping through the hole in the wall.

The room on the other side was circular with heavily uneven dark stone walls. Behind him the wall closed and he found himself standing alone in the room for several minutes before a Nox suddenly appeared from thin air. It was clear that it was old, its hair was covering its entire body and had it not been for the sticks and flowers in the hair Daniel would not have been sure it was a Nox. Daniel stayed quiet, waiting for the Nox to speak. Another few minutes passed before three more, very hairy, Nox appeared in the room in quick succession.

"Why have the Alterra returned?" someone asked. The sound seemed to come from all directions and there was no way for Daniel to know which one was speaking.

"To bring peace and correct old mistakes," Daniel answered.

"The Alterra have made mistakes that can never be corrected and the Nox will never forgive the Alterra for what they did," another voice said.

"Yes, Lya has told me about what happened with the Furlings. I regret such a thing happened and I know that there is nothing we can ever do to save those that you were forced to kill, but I hope that you understand that we are a new generation. We will do everything we can to make up for the failures of the old Alterra."

"We know who you are Daniel Jackson, you are younger than our newly born children. What hope do you have of knowing what is best for everyone?"

"I am sure that there is much to learn, no one can know exactly what will be the consequences of our actions. Not me, not you, not the ascended Alterra. But we will do everything we can to be sure that the inhabitants of this galaxy and any other galaxy we travel to knows peace."

"Then perhaps you know something."

"What help do you seek from the Nox?" a third voice asked.

"It is not we who need your help. We seek it on behalf of the Asgard, your people are well known for their knowledge of biology and nature. We hope that you may be able to help them in restoring their bodies."

"We will not help. But we will not forbid our people from helping you, if you can find someone who is willing then they may help."

The four vanished without a trace, but Daniel could feel them using their mental powers. Behind him the wall opened and he could see Lya waiting for him.

"What did they say?" she asked.

"They will allow the Nox to help if they wish, but they will not tell anyone to help us," Daniel informed. "It seems they are still angry with the actions of the Alterra but that they are willing to give us a chance."

"If that is the way it must be then I will give my assistance to the Asgard," Lya said and bowed. "We do not have ships, but since you brought one here I think that will not be an issue."

"I was hoping that you still had access to the stargate, we will be going far away."

She placed a hand on his shoulder and they transported out to the plain where the ship was waiting. "Of course, we have only hidden it so that we can help our allies if needed." She arched her hand through the air and the gate appeared next to the ship.

Daniel placed his hand on his com badge. "We will be leaving by gate, report back to Earth."

-Yes Sir,- the Captain of the ship replied. It took mere seconds before the ship rose up and left the planet.

Daniel walked up to the DHD and placed his hand on it, it was an easy task to have Atlantis provide the power needed for the wormhole and in a matter of seconds the wormhole formed.

"It has been a long time since I traveled through the wormholes," Lya said.

Daniel grabbed her hand and led her up to the event horizon. "Breath out before stepping through and you will barely feel a thing." Together they walked into the gate.

Mokar was standing in front of the gate in Atlantis when Daniel and Lya came through.

She let out a deep sigh before walking up to Mokar. "Hello. I am Lya of the Nox."

"I am Mokar of the Alterra, I hope you will find our home hospitable while you are here," Mokar replied.

She looked distressed. "It is so very barren, Gaia is a beacon of life. This city only has a few plants in it, it is very sad to see so many people live here with so little life around them."

"As all our cities this city was once covered in gardens and filled with plants. I assure you that we will be restoring the gardens and plants but at the moment there are no people among us who have the time for such activities and those who have the time do not know enough about plants or have the interest to do so," Mokar promised.

"I hope you will. Nature is vital, your technology is powerful but you still rely on nature to feed your people."

"You are correct." Mokar turned towards the stairs. "Come, I wish to talk to you before you meet the Asgard."

"I will follow." Together Mokar and Lya walked up the stairs.

"I guess I will just head back to Earth then," Daniel shouted after them.

"Doctor Jackson, I believe that Colonel Carter and General O'Neill wished that you come by the Nest. They have some good news and a few things for you to bring to Earth," Mokar replied.

"Thank you for telling me that," Daniel yelled after them.

Together Mokar and Lya walked into the conference room and he raised a forcefield around the inside of the room.

"You must know that no forcefield can hold me inside," Lya said curiously.

"I am sorry, it is not to lock you inside here with me. It is to make sure that we can talk without others knowing what we say. For that same reason I have brought us out of phase," Mokar said.

She gave him a questioning look. "To keep secrets from others rarely help solve things."

Mokar nodded. "I know that it does not, but the situation now is sensitive."

"Please do tell me." She walked up to one of the chairs and sat down. He did the same on the other side of the large table.

"I have already solved the problem the Asgard are having, not once but twice. I am not trying to be arrogant but you are not actually needed for us to succeed."

"Then why bring me here?" she asked.

"Because the Asgard do not know about it. I am not sure how much you know about the modern Asgard race, but they are split in two. The Asgard and the Vanir have two different views, this is a chance for them to unite over their discovery of a solution. I need the Asgard and the Vanir to solve this together in a way that they feel is theirs. I know that the Nox do not like war, but in old times you understood that war may sometime be required to save lives and I need the Asgard united for a war against the wraith who feed on the lives of humans and against our brothers and sisters, the Ori. I need them as a united race so that they can help us teach the humans of Earth and the humans of Pegasus what they need to keep the peace among themselves and in their galaxies. Surely the Nox know how many more lives have..." She held up a hand to silence him.

"You do not need to explain further, I understand how important it is for the Asgard to be united. We do not like the methods of the Alterra, the wars and the violence, but we will admit that peace lasted while the Alterra ruled. A peace that has been broken for thousands of years now, many unnecessary deaths happen now that the Alterra do not keep the peace."

Mokar smiled. "Thank you Lya. I will remember this."

Lya smiled back at him. "And I will remember as well Alterra, now you say that you have solved the issue. May I see your work?"

"Of course." He focused on the mental interface of the table and two holographic bodies appeared floating in the air, there was no mistaking the fact that they were male and female. They were distinctly Asgard, grey men with long arms and big heads, but these were almost as large as the average human and with thicker limbs. The bodies were still very thin but now it at least looked as if they would not break if you blew too hard in their general direction. Next to the bodies the genetic makeup of the two bodies appeared and the estimates of what the bodies would be able to do. "All my simulations have shown that this body will solve both their cloning and reproduction issues."

Lya rose up from her chair and strode up to the holograms to look through the data. It took several minutes before she answered. "I do not know much about the issues of the Asgard, but these bodies will function, of that I am sure. I see several things that you can improve upon to increase their strength and mental processing. The agility of this bone structure will cause issues as well. How advanced do you wish the bodies to be?"

"I only wish for the Asgard to be restored to their former function as far as their bodies go. I see no reason to interfere with their natural evolution in any way, but I would be happy if they would not have any drawbacks that would cause problems for them in the future."

"You wish them to be perfect, but not advanced?" Lya asked.

"Nothing is perfect and the Asgard are already advanced. Please, if you will guide them I think that you are wise enough to give them the bodies they need. I feel no need to control what you steer them towards as long as you promise that the Asgard and the Vanir be the ones that makes the discovery."

She smiled at him again. "I will be sure that the bodies unite them, that I promise you friend."

"Thank you, friend," Mokar said. "I will make sure that you can access this data from the station, but please do not show this to the Asgard. When they are done I will destroy the data."

"I will not show them."

The forcefield around them lowered, the phase device deactivated and the doors to the the conference room opened.


	7. Chapter 7 Asurans for days

A few hours had passed since Rush had collapsed and Jack was sitting in a meeting room with Doctor Beckett, Doctor Keller and Doctor McKay.

"So what is the condition of the two patients?" Jack asked.

"The lad has suffered from rapid freezing, the crystallization of internal fluids that happened during the freeze has punctured almost every cell in the body. We are working to restore the cells but it will take time," Beckett answered.

"What about Doctor Rush?" Jack asked.

"That is a bit more complicated," Keller said.

"He suffers from something the Alterra call volatile celular wormhole compression," Rodney said. He saw the confused look on Jack's face. "Rush forced the gate he used to go online before calibrating it properly. As an Alterra he could force the gate to accept a connection, but because it was not set up properly the wormhole became unstable. As a result of that his molecular pattern was disturbed in transit and his DNA was altered. Jennifer and Carson need to restore his DNA piece by piece, it can be done but it will also take a lot of time. The kid got lucky, he was technically dead when he passed through the gate so his cells were left mostly untouched by the wormhole."

"This is a mess. Do we have any idea why Mister Wallace was frozen?" Jack asked.

"I have looked through the logs of the ring platform he used, it seems he was trying to send matter across distances that far exceeds the rings capabilities. The Alterra never managed to send matter between two sets of rings beyond a certain distance of each other because the containment field that protects the matter being transported takes them slightly out of phase but it decayed in less than a second. I doubt he knew this, it is hidden deep in the logs of the development process. This meant that the field lost integrity when it traveled and he was exposed to space and temperatures close to zero kelvin, he would not have noticed this as the transfer appears to be instant-"

"I'll stop you there Doctor McKay," Jack said with a hand gesture. "I am sure you are correct and that there is a perfectly good explanation, can you fix the problem with the rings for them or is there another way for them to solve it?"

"The Alterra solved it when they changed to the transporter booths we use here in Atlantis, it should be possible to change them to transmit through subspace rather than through a physical connection. But it would be more reliable if they stuck to a ship, even a slow hyperdrive would cross the distance in a matter of seconds. Though I will say that the rings could be used to transfer non living things, but the rings will freeze everything they swap. It will require a lot of energy to thaw up what the rings exchange, even the air will be freezing. We are using some experimental technology in a test to transfer resources inside a system but over very large distances, it is using some wraith technology but we are adopting it to create a more efficient Alterran version, we are still testing it but we could always use a secondary test site."

"I will tell them to stick to hyperdrives for the time being, but I think this new technology could serve them well. If you have the time I want you to set up another test site there."

"We can handle that, some of the sites have started to produce excess resources."

"Divert what you can to them then Doctor." Jack turned away from Rodney to the doctors. "How long until Doctor Rush and Mister Wallace will have recovered?"

"The lad will be back on his feet in a matter of days but he will need some supervision from a trained doctor until all of his cells have healed," Beckett replied. "Doctor Rush is another matter, he will need regenerative cell therapy every day for at least a year. Perhaps more. It will be two or three weeks before we can wake him up."

"The expedition only has a field medic, is there any doctor that you can recommend for the expedition?" Jack asked.

"Aye, there's several," Beckett answered.

"I want a list." Jack took a few moments before he continued. "Doctor McKay at this moment both of the expeditions best eggheads are unable to perform their duties, report to their base as soon as possible and take care of things there until Mister Wallace is back on his feet. Doctor Keller, until we can determine who best to take over as chief medical officer I'd like you to go there too. It will only be for a couple of days until Mister Wallace is feeling better and we can have a doctor assigned to the expedition."

"I have experiments to run here General," Rodney complained.

"They will have to wait Doctor McKay, you are the only dedicated Alterran scientist until Doctor Rush has completed his transformation, they need your guidance."

Rodney straightened up in his chair. "When you put it like that. I guess Zelenka can keep an eye on things here for a few days."

"Good. Doctor Keller, will the Asgard project manage without you?"

"I think so. My role has been more about keeping the peace between the Asgard and the Vanir than helping them, I think Lya can handle it for a few days," she answered.

"Good. The Nest will be able to dial out in a few hours, make sure you are ready."

Daniel stepped out of the gate and into the gate room of the Nest. Half a dozen people were running around with large silver colored cubes floating behind them, they were building tall stacks along the walls of the room. Before Daniel had a chance to talk to anyone Sam and Jack beamed into the room.

"Good to see you Daniel, how are things back on Earth?" Jack asked.

"It's coming along, things are going slow because most of their men need to farm to keep themselves feed," Daniel answered. "We are slowly working on improving their farms and freeing up manpower. We have began to create tractors and irrigation systems but it is taking time and resources that we do not have at the moment."

"Then you are going to like this Daniel," Sam said.

"What is it?"

"A little something I came up with," Jack said, he was beaming with pride.

"Did he really?" Daniel asked Sam.

"He came up with the basic thought, I improved upon it," Sam admitted.

"See why is it so hard to believe that I can come up with stuff?" Jack asked.

"Because you usually do not do such things," Daniel informed.

"This time I did," Jack gloated.

"So what is it?" Daniel asked.

"Two and a half thousand Asurans going to Earth to help clean up the cities," Jack said with a smile and swept his arms around the room.

Daniel meanwhile looked sceptical. "For one I thought that Sam was the one who programmed the new Asurans and secondly I thought we had nowhere near enough Neutronium to make even one, where did we gain enough for two and a half thousand?"

"Yes I programmed them, but Jack realised how we could make them without Neutronium. The short version is that we can use the matter converters connected to the reactor to make anything we want but due to limited space on this ship we can create few things in large enough quantities to matter, but Asurans are free labor. We can make as many as we wish, we've run a few tests these last days and at maximum we can create four hundred and twenty one Asurans each day without risking this ship. You and Earth will be getting the first batch," Sam explained.

"We can make a lot of cool things with this," Jack said excitedly.

"Of course you can Jack," Daniel said.

"We'll be making new warships in no time now," Jack said.

"Good for you Jack."

"He's a bit excited at the moment," Sam said with a patronising tone. "I'm sorry you can't stay longer Daniel, but I will be taking the ship into wraith territory as soon as you have brought these to Earth. Every day we can create Asurans we will send a large portion of them to you."

"It's fine, I will have a lot of work to do when I return to Earth with these. The sooner I leave the sooner I can have them working on the cities lost in the war."

"Dial Earth," Jack ordered into thin air. A few seconds later the gate dialed and a wormhole was established.

"Some of these will be used to begin construction of a base in Antarctica so that we can begin to pull back our military forces from the planet. I'll be sure to invite the two of you to the grand opening," Daniel said before he backed through the gate. Around them the silver colored cubes had begun to form into Asurans and they followed Daniel through the gate.

On the other side of the gate Daniel was greeted by the normal security and a handful of confused technicians.

"It's fine," Daniel said calmly. He turned to the closest Asuran. "There is a large gathering field outside, I want you all to go there and wait for further instructions."

"I will see to it that we all gather there," it replied. Quietly it began to transmit the instructions to the other Asurans who were arriving through the gate and they all formed a line as they walked through the gate room. A few seconds later they all began to run at full speed, even those coming through the gate. A few moments later the Asurans began to arrive through the gate five at a time. "All units will have arrived in a little over eight minutes," the single Asuran informed.

"Locate Mis Wray and Colonel Sheppard, send them to my office. I want lists of all the major population centers on the planet and the major farming areas as well, on my desk in half an hour," Daniel ordered the nearby technicians.

"Yes Sir, we will have them ready soon," one of the technicians said and vanished out a door. Meanwhile Daniel focused on the base's mental interface and beamed himself to his office.

He found himself standing in front of the desk but he hurried away to the control panel on the wall and pressed several buttons. The large window was covered and the furniture vanished, either retracting into the walls or floors and being beamed away, so that he found himself in a completely dark room except for the dim light given off by the control panel. He pressed one final button and a holographic generator activated. He took mental control over the hologram and pulled up a map of Earth as it was looking at the moment, war torn and ravaged. The largest evidence of the chaos was the huge crater in the ice and soil of Antarctica.

While he was inspecting the globe in front of him he heard the chiming from the door.

"Enter," Daniel commanded and the door opened.

Camile Wray entered the room closely followed by Colonel Sheppard.

"You asked to see us," Camile stated as the door closed.

"Yes, I have just received some Asurans from Jack and Sam," Daniel explained. "Miss Wray, we will soon begin to clean up the cities destroyed over the course of the wars that have been fought on Earth in recent time. What I wish to know from you is where you think we should begin. There is also the issue of how we should proceed, we can do our best to restore the cities as they were, we could replace the cities with completely new cities or we could gather materials from nearby ruins to construct entirely new cities."

"With your advanced sensors I think you know more than we do about where people have fled to, the infrastructure we have relies on your ships and jumpers for transportation," she answered.

"A large amount of people have gathered around this base," Sheppard reminded.

"Yes and when we return to Antarctica I will make sure that we turn this base into a new city. But these people are good for now," Daniel answered. He received a digital message that he opened straight away, it contained the lists he had asked for and he marked them down on the holographic globe. "The blue areas are where we have detected large gatherings of people, the green are farming areas."

"It seems they are mostly far from any larger cities," Wray said.

"Then we will be going for new cities where people have gathered and nearby farms to feed them," Daniel determined.

"That will be a good way to show that this is a new start for the people of Earth," Wray said.

"If there are any people on Earth who knows how to plan cities I wish that you bring them here as soon as you can. We will need their expertise to succeed."

"I will see to it," Wray said and hurried out of the room.

"And what did you want me here for?" Sheppard asked. He was leaning against the wall next to the door.

"Did you see the Asurans outside the base?" Daniel asked. He focused on the hologram and it shifted to show Antarctica.

"Not yet, but some of my men reported that there's close to a thousand of them standing in the field outside," Sheppard said.

"It should be two and a half thousand," Daniel informed. "Anyway, as I said we will be moving back to Antarctica. It will be a military base, a seat of government, a place of learning and many other things. While anything we build on the rest of the planet will be limited to technology known on Earth we are free to do as we please and use whatever technology we need in Antarctica. So what facilities do you need for your men?"

"Barracks, shooting ranges, mess halls, that sort of thing," Sheppard said. He stepped away from the wall and came up to the hologram where Daniel had already placed several buildings. "I want a small barrack here among the buildings for security personnel and a larger one further out from the centrum where we can train."

"Done," Daniel said. His mental command shifted some buildings and added space for a small security building in the middle of the small holographic city. Far out on the ice covered plain a large space was reserved for a military complex.

"What about shields? Defensive weapons? A shipyard?" John asked, the excitement in his voice was clear.

"Shields will be a must around any facility in Antarctica or we're going to have one large heating bill at the end of each month and some small flood issues. I think the defensive network around the planet will be enough but you are the ranking military leader here, if you feel the need for weapons we will have weapons."

"Great." John stepped up to the hologram and focused, one by one structures appeared on the surface of the planet. They had a lot of work to do but it would be worth it in the end.


	8. Chapter 8 Arrival in Lega

Teal'c was laying in his bed sleeping when his com badge sounded from the bed table. It was in early morning, ship time.

-Master Teal'c, we will soon be arriving at the outskirt of Lega.-

The message was repeated a few times before Teal'c woke up, grabbed the combadge and activated it.

"I will be on the bridge soon. Take us out of hyperspace before we reach Lega."

-Yes Master Teal'c.-

Teal'c got out of bed and while he was getting dressed he felt the ship leaving hyperspace. He hurried to put on a shirt before leaving his room. As the Hermes class were quite small he passed through the corridors of the ship to the bridge in a few minutes.

When Teal'c stepped onto the bridge all of the Jaffa on the bridge stood up and bowed towards him while the Travelers on the bridge gave him a respectful nod.

"How is the fleet looking?" Teal'c asked.

"There were some issues with the hyperdrive on the ship commanded by Se'net," the Jaffa in charge of the ship at the moment reported.

"Have the issue been resolved?" Teal'c asked. He strode up behind the control chair and leaned on it. The Jaffa in the chair began to move out of it, but Teal'c put his hand on the Jaffa's shoulder. "You are still in charge of the ship."

"Of course Master Teal'c. The issue has been resolved by the Travelers without leaving hyperspace but they will fall behind if we push the hyperdrives of our ships."

"That is alright, make sure we do not go faster than the engineers on Se'net's ship feel comfortable with," Teal'c ordered.

"I will send out the order."

"Good." Teal'c passed by the control chair and walked up to the viewport. Outside he saw Lega, a Milky Way like galaxy of similar size. "Have our ships surround the galaxy and activate the sensors."

"Yes Master Teal'c. It will take a few hours for our ships to fly over the galaxy and take up positions."

"We will be taking the time we need. Send out the subspace signals that the Alterra gave us." Through the viewport Teal'c could see the other ships in his fleet moving away before jumping to hyperspace.

"Sending signal." The Jaffa in the control chair said. He waited for a few minutes. "We have received five replies on the Alterran signals."

"Locate the sources of the signals and map them to the sensory data we will have once our ships are in position and all sensors are linked," Teal'c ordered. He had walked up to the viewport.

"Yes Master Teal'c."

In front of Teal'c five blue circles formed in a tight cluster close to the center of the galactic core, the five circles almost overlapped each other perfectly.

"Do they all come from the same system?" Teal'c asked.

The viewport zoomed in on the circles and they seemed to all be located in the same group of stars.

"I am sorry master Teal'c but at this distance and with old star charts the system can not tell. But as you can see on the viewport our triangulation puts them close together."

"Very well. Call for me if something happens. Have all ships prepare the troops when we have gathered all the sensor data we need. I want everyone awake before we head into the galaxy to see just what these five objects are."

"Of course Master Teal'c," the Jaffa in the control chair said as Teal'c passed him and left the bridge.

After leaving the bridge Teal'c headed back to his room for some more rest. He got a few hours of sleep before his com badge once again woke him up.

-Master Teal'c, we have triangulated the subspace signals. I took the liberty of gathering the fleet a few minutes above the system they are located in. We are awaiting your orders.-

Teal'c blinked a few times and sat up in his bed.

"I will be on the bridge soon. Have seven squads of troops ready if we need them."

-They will be ready in a few minutes Master Teal'c.-

"Set a course for the signals, make sure we arrive outside range of any weapons. Cloak the fleet when we leave hyperspace and scatter."

-Yes Master Teal'c

Teal'c rose from his bed and left for the bridge.

When Teal'c arrived on the bridge it was as it usually were, Travelers were manning the more technical consoles while Jaffa manned weapons and simpler consoles.

Through the viewport Teal'c saw the blue flux of hyperspace.

"Master Teal'c, we have picked up some minor subspace disruptions. Sensors are having a hard time locating the sources," the Jaffa in the control chair said.

"Stay on course, have weapons ready," Teal'c ordered.

"Yes Master Teal'c. We will be dropping out momentarily."

A few seconds later the ship dropped out of hyperspace in a star system with two Earth-like planets orbiting a red dwarf. Behind them the rest of the fleet dropped out of hyperspace too and took up a V formation around Teal'c's ship.

"Do we have any more sensor data on the subspace disruptions?" Teal'c asked. He just had time to finish the sentence when a bright green lances struck the ship.

"Shield took minimal damage," the Jaffa in the control chair reported.

"What was it that attacked us?" Teal'c asked. Straight away the viewport zoomed in on a black portion of space where a single satellite was sitting. Two more green lances struck the ship but the ship barely shook.

"Sensors identify it as an Alterran defence satellite. It seems to lack proper power."

Teal'c stood up to the empty area in front of the viewport, he reached out his hand in the air and an override pillar rose up into his hand. Almost all Alterran systems could be slaved to it if needed, as long as an Alterra was controlling it. Teal'c reached out through the pillar and found two defense satellites in orbit around one of the world's. He focused on each one of them and slaved them to the ship's system before shutting down the pillar.

At the same time several power sources activated around the system and a hail of miniature plasma bolts began to slam into the fleet.

"We have detected several hundred small ships, their weapons are firing but they are causing minimal strain on the shields. We have the upper hand," the Jaffa in the control chair said.

"Advance on the closest planet. Hold fire and open a channel to Atlantis," Teal'c ordered.

It only took a few seconds before the viewport showed a woman in a Lantean uniform sitting in Atlantis' control room.

-This is Atlantis control what do you require?- the woman asked.

"I need to speak with General O'Neil or Mokar," Teal'c said.

-General O'Neil is in a meeting, I will contact Mokar and see if he is available.- She sat there silently for several minutes. -Mokar will talk with you.-

Her image vanished and was replaced by one of Mokar sitting in the labs on the Alterran research station.

-How are things going Teal'c?- Mokar asked.

"We have come under attack from an unknown force occupying a system where Alterran equipment have responded to our signals. What do you wish us to do? Their weapons are primitive and our shields can hold of their entire armada," Teal'c reported.

-Do what you can to solve this peacefully, but if they fail to listen you can disable their ships as you see fitting. I would prefer not to start wars or to kill people but if they attacked you it was their choice. I trust you to make the right choice Teal'c.-

"Then I will deal with it." Teal'c bowed and the connection was severed. "Advance towards one of the responding signals. Transmit a message on all subspace channels and any other mediums that we can, tell them that we come in peace to recover our technology and property."

"Two of the signals are coming from the surface of the inner planet, one from the outer and two from the satellites," the Jaffa in the control chair reported.

"Pick the closest planet, I will go down with our men."

"Yes Master Teal'c."

Everyone on the bridge saw the barrage of plasma bolts firing into them as the ship moved forward with the rest of the fleet following in tow. Even though Teal'c's fleet transmitted messages in all known languages the barrage of bolts kept coming. The thousands of small vessels kept up their assault as Teal'c's fleet nimbly maneuvered between the ships, taking care not to crash into any of the smaller vessels.

"Can our sensors penetrate their shields?" Teal'c asked.

"The vessels do not seem to be shielded. Our sensors are scanning their ships for any responses to our messages but so far they seem to be ignoring us."

"Is the crew human?"

"Some, the crews appear to be made up of several races."

"Keep hailing them."

The bridge stayed silent while they cruised between the firing ships, all of the ships looked different but they all looked as if they had been thrown together from mismatching parts.

"Keep the fleet safe," Teal'c said to the Jaffa in the control chair.

"Of course Master Teal'c," the Jaffa replied.

With a simple nod Teal'c walked out of the bridge back to his room. There he hurried to get into his white Jaffa armour. He flexed his muscles a few times to make sure everything was sitting where it should before he grabbed the staff weapon from the rack it was sitting in.

With his gear done Teal'c activated his combadge to the bridge. "Are our troops ready?"

-Yes Master Teal'c, we are all awaiting your orders,- the Jaffa in the control chair said.

"Good, do we know what is waiting for us one the surface?"

-Sensors indicate a large underground facility. There appear to be thousands of smaller, primitive, abodes surrounding the entrances to the facility. The facility appears to be shielded, we can not transport you into it.-

"Then we will take the facility by force. What forces are there on the ground?"

-The facility's shield makes it hard for our sensors to determine the numbers of the enemy, but I think the settlement can hold several thousands. If these are like the Jaffa then you will face more than a thousand enemies, I would not recommend direct contact.-

"Then it will be a test for our new armour and our weapons. Put us down as close to an entrance as you can, away from any clusters of enemies."

-Yes Master Teal'c.-

It took a matter of seconds before a white flash encompassed Teal'c.

The first thing Teal'c saw when he was transported down to the planet was a group of his Jaffa spread through the sand dunes that surrounded them. One of the Jaffa came running up to him the moment he appeared.

"No signs of movement around us or inside the settlement," the Jaffa said. As he spoke more Jaffa appeared.

"Good. We will march in as soon as all our troops arrive," Teal'c said.

It took a matter of seconds before Teal'c combadge activated.

-Everyone has been transported to the planet Master Teal'c.-

"Thank you," Teal'c said and closed the connection. He walked up the closest dune and looked out over the settlement below. Then he looked back out over his troops, all of them wore the new Jaffa armours but some had chosen to keep the dark grey color, a symbol of all that they needed to atone for. He had picked some of the most seasoned warriors of the Jaffa for this and it was clear to anyone looking at them. Most of them had scars running across their faces or where missing an eye or several fingers, but Teal'c knew that they would follow his lead. "These people have attacked us, but we do not know why. Set your staffs to stun, if you need to kill I know that you do not need your staffs." In front of him all the Jaffa twisted the back of their staffs to set them to stun, a new function. "There is a facility belonging to the Alterra on this planet and an entrance in the settlement we are attacking. We will make for the entrance and I do not want any of you to get lost."

With that said Teal'c walked over the top of the dune down towards the settlement. A few hundred meters from the outer houses a bullet struck Teal'c's armour and ricocheted into the sand behind him, in that moment Teal'c switched to a full sprint. He saw several towers sticking up above the houses and the muzzle flashes coming from them. He reached the first house and looked back at his troops to see the sand around them being tossed into the air where bullets struck. He took a few seconds to let more of his troops catch up to him before he ducked into one of the streets. He got a few meters down the street before doors opened to some of the houses and men poured out, if that was what they could be called with their horns, strange colored and textured skin or several arms, it was clear that most were not human or pure humans at least. Acting on instinct Teal'c turned towards the closest one and fired the staff, the green skinned man he hit fell with a thud but by that time Teal'c had already fired against two more. It only took a few moments for two Jaffa to charge up next to him with their staffs ready to swing, the other Jaffa took a knee behind them and began to fire down the street. Only a handful of the defenders fell to their advance before those who survived began a hastily retreat back into the houses.

Teal'c looked back at his troops. "Is anyone injured?" They all shook their heads, the new armours had worked as planned. "Ignore the houses for now."

As a unit they all pressed forward through the narrow streets after the still fleeing men before them, a well used Jaffa tactic, chase your enemy to find their home. Eventually all the men they chased disappeared down a long tunnel into a building that was distinctly Alterran in design, even if parts of the building was covered in paint and materials lying on the outside. About a hundred meters into the tunnel a set of doubble doors slammed shut behind the last of the men.

When they were a few hundred meters from the building slots in the doors opened and Teal'c saw small barrels sticking out before bullets began to strike his armour, but like before they bounced off. He charged forward to the doors, when he reached them he grabbed one of the barrels and pulled it out of the slot. Then he raised his staff and fired into the slot as fast as he could. Around him his troops followed his lead and in seconds the resistance from inside stopped.

Teal'c looked around for any console to open the doors and now that he took time to look he saw two Alterran panels at the start of the tunnel. As he walked up to the two panels he saw a wide groove running up the side of one wall, across the roof and down the other side between the two panels. He tried to press a few of the buttons on the closest panel but nothing happened.

"What are your orders Master Teal'c?" one of the Jaffa wondered.

"Prepare to breach the doors," Teal'c ordered. While his Jaffa prepared the charges Teal'c kicked away some of the dirt on the ground and saw the groove running along the floor too, but here it was filled by a thick metal piece. It did not take much for Teal'c to know that it was most likely the original Alterran door. Behind him he heard a Jaffa shout out and a moment later an explosion tore away the door that was in their way. As he walked towards the large hole in the door Teal'c activated his combadge and connected to the bridge of his ship. "This is Teal'c, we have entered the Alterran facility. Can the sensors give us any directions?"

-I am sorry master Teal'c but our sensors give us no details. The facility seems to be very large and there are impressive energy readings somewhere inside, but we can not map the facility or determine where the energy comes from,- someone responded. -If you find a working console we may be able to do something.-

"Very well, we will find a console," Teal'c said before walking down the corridor towards whatever was inside.


	9. Chapter 9 Haenus

Teal'c had walked a few hundred meters beyond the breached door, with his Jaffa behind him, when a blue arrow appeared out of thin air in the middle of the intersection in front of them. It only stayed there for a few moments before it vanished. When Teal'c saw the arrow he hesitated for a few moments, but as all the three corridors looked the same he followed the arrow deeper into the facility. They passed by hundreds of rooms in the corridor, each one was a set of living quarters, before reaching another intersection. Again an arrow was there for a few moments before it vanished. They followed the arrows for an hour before Teal'c's combadge sounded. All the rooms they passed, thousands upon thousands, were living quarters.

-Master Teal'c the enemy crafts are still trying to breach our shields, a few of them have tried ramming us. Our shields will hold for days, maybe weeks, but I wish to know if we are still to leave them be.-

"Unless they cause further problems we let them live. But I will leave that to you," Teal'c answered.

-Yes Master Teal'c.-

They walked down a few more corridors before Teal'c stepped around a corner and saw row after row of makeshift barricades sitting in the corridor with hundreds of men hiding behind them. On top of one of the barricades a man with blue skin, red horns and short dark hair was standing.

The man on top of the barricade spoke, but no one understood what he said.

Patiently Teal'c waited for the man to stop before he spoke. "We do not seek to harm you, we only come here to reclaim what is ours." As soon as he stopped talking Teal'c was hit by a bullet in the shoulder and moments after all the men behind the barricades began to fire. Teal'c stepped back around the corner to his men as the bullets passed by. He took a firm grip of his staff and twisted it back to lethal mode. "Kill them if you wish."

The Jaffa nodded and twisted their staffs before rushing around the corner firing. The Jaffa were charging forward ferociously and the enemies were falling before them by the droves, as Teal'c walked down the corridor he did not even need to use his staff. It did not take even a minute before the corridor was filled with bodies and the groans of the dying. One of the dying men was scratching on a door at the far end of the corridor but it refused to open for him, Teal'c shot the man in the back as he approached the door. The moment the man died the door softly opened and allowed Teal'c inside.

Before he walked through the door, to what looked like a control room, Teal'c turned back to his men and pointed to four Jaffa. "You come with me. Everyone else sweep the area for any enemies." Then he tapped the combadge. "This is Teal'c speaking to all ships. I want all ships to pick a few enemy crafts and disable or destroy them as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Make a show of force. Give them a minute and if they still act aggressive you are free to wipe out their fleet. Pursue them if you wish, but there is no reason to follow them through hyperspace."

Inside the room Teal'c could see several consoles lining the walls and a central platform surrounded by several more consoles. He strode up to the central platform and all the consoles in the room activated. Teal'c placed his hands on one of consoles and a man in Alterran robes with short cut dark hair appeared next to Teal'c. In a moment all the staff weapons in the room pointed towards him.

"New user detected," the man said in Ancient. "Awaiting instructions."

It took a few moments for Teal'c's armour to translate for him. "Can you speak english?"

The man tilted his head for several seconds. "Do you find this language more appropriate?" the man said, this time in english.

"That is better," Teal'c said. "What are you?"

The man walked around the room until he stood right before Teal'c. "I am Nohu, the caretaker of this facility. I was created by the Alterra to help them manage the logistics of this facility."

"What is this facility?"

Nohu walked up to one of the walls and motioned for Teal'c to follow. As Nohu walked the Jaffa followed him with their staffs. "This is Haenus," Nohu said. It took a few moments before the walls of the room began to rise with a rumble to reveal windows. Outside the windows there was compact darkness for a few moments before lights began to glow slightly, over a few seconds the intensity of the light increased until it filled the huge cavern outside. Far below them Teal'c could see thousands of spires sticking up in small clusters.

"Did the Alterra build an underground city?" Teal'c asked. He was admiring the sheer scale of the cave they were in, it was by far the largest construction he had ever seen.

"What you see below is the last attempt of the Alterra in this galaxy to escape the plague. They built enough cityships to move their entire healthy population into deep space, each part sterilised meticulously before it was allowed inside. Nothing hollow was brought in out of fear that the plague was hiding inside."

"What happened with the Alterra?" Teal'c asked.

"They did everything to make sure that the plague could not enter this facility. Workers were chosen for this facility and locked inside along with all materials they could spare at the time. As you can see construction came a long way before things went bad. In this system they also constructed a large bunker to hold their population until they could move into deep space. Even those who were dying from the plague came to the bunker, but those lived in a section physically separated from the those who were healthy. Anyone who wished to enter the bunker with those who were healthy had to spent three hundred years in an isolation cell to make sure they were not infected. But one day, before the first cycle of isolation was over, thousands of healthy Alterra were infected inside the bunker, the automated system closed down the entire bunker and decontaminated the entire bunker. Those that were infected by the plague were sent to the others, but night after night more became infected until the Alterra gave up. Too many were lost and they had no resources left, so they opened up the bunker and spread out through the galaxy. Those that lived here in this facility did the same and abandoned me here. I assumed they all died out, but if you are here then that means some of them may have survived."

"I do not come from this galaxy. We come from the galaxy that the Alterra call Avalon, I do not know how but one Alterra returned not long ago."

"I am sad to hear that, but it is good that the Alterra are still around in one way or another." Nohu looked towards Teal'c and bowed. "I am ready to serve you, as is this facility."

"What do you know about the people who held this facility before we came?" Teal'c asked.

"They are pirates who discovered this facility a few decades ago, I was programmed to protect the Alterra but with no Alterra here I did not know how to respond. So I let them enter. They used my systems to improve their technology, I have monitored their primitive subspace communicators and it seems that they are forcing planets to give them tributes. It seems that they are horrible people. When my sensors detected that you fought against them I did what I could to guide you here. I have since sealed off this facility from the outside to make sure the pirates can not enter."

"Is there a stargate in this facility?" Teal'c asked.

"There is one here, as well as one for every cityship. But they are all offline to make sure that the plague could not be brought in that way."

"There are several Alterran ships in orbit, can you link with them and use them to relay a message to Atlantis?"

"I will need your permission to access the ships' systems to determine what capabilities they has," Nohu said.

"Do what you need."

"Thank you." Nohu twisted his head slightly. "It seems my protocols are a few versions behind... I have now updated my protocols and can establish subspace communications to Atlantis, if you wish I can establish a holo meeting with Atlantis."

"A holo meeting will not be needed."

"Is there someone on Atlantis you wish me to connect to?"

"The Alterra called Mokar."

It only took a few seconds before the console in front of Teal'c showed Mokar's face.

-I take it you found something Teal'c?-

"Indeed. You should come see this. I will send a gate address to you."

-I have things to do Teal'c, unless it is something large I will have to send someone else to see what it is.-

"It is very large, if you will not come you should send Colonel Carter. Someone who knows Alterran systems will need to come here," Teal'c said.

Mokar nodded a few times. -If you think it is large I will come there Teal'c. I will bring Colonel Carter too.-

"Thank you," Teal'c said. He saw Mokar rise in front of the camera before the connection was cut. When the connection was cut Teal'c pressed his combadge and connected to the bridge of his command ship. "I want a status report."

-Of course Master Teal'c. We have engaged the hostile fleet and destroyed large parts of it, but they are still attacking us. As per your orders we are destroying them. Our sensors are connecting to the Alterran facility below and we are able to get readings on the facility, we can guide you if needed.-

"Good, we have determined that they are pirates, wipe them out. We have located the control center of the facility and do not need further guidance."

-Then we will eliminate the enemy Master Teal'c.-

From outside the room Teal'c heard the hurried sound of footsteps and a minute later Mokar came jogging into the room with Sam following several seconds behind.

"So what was it that..." Mokar began, as he looked out through the windows he trailed off.

"Welcome to Haenus. I am Nohu, the caretaker of this facility," Nohu greeted them.

"This is amazing," Sam said as she looked out through the windows. "Are those all cityships?"

"Yes, the Alterra of this galaxy began construction of forty eight cityships with the purpose of going into hiding in deep space," Nohu said. "At this moment none of the city ships are functional or liveable."

"You were right to have me come here Teal'c," Mokar said from a window. Then he turned to Nohu. "How far along are the cityships?"

A large holographic screen appeared next to Nohu and began to scroll through materials. "Construction of the superstructure are completed on thirty seven, four have support systems installed, five need stardrives and two require all the interior installations such as consoles, walls, beds, lab equipment and the likes. It will take much to get them working, much of the materials needed for the last two cityships are in storage but it will require labor."

"Is this facility not automated?" Sam asked.

"Parts of the facility are, but the Alterra wished to assemble the cities as much as they could by themselves," Nohu said.

"With these we could move the population of Pegasus away from the wraith, starve them out," Sam said.

"Yes, these cityships can do that. But it takes resources we do not have to get them operational and even if we did we do not have enough people to man them or enough food to feed them," Mokar said.

"The cities were built to be self sufficient, arks in a way. Food can be grown in the city for the inhabitants as long as there is power," Nohu said.

"I can use the Nest to provide ZPMs for the cities," Sam said.

"We have the power the cities need stored in this facility. I only require materials."

Mokar nodded slowly. "I will send some of our best engineers here to automate it then as well as some upgrades so that you can recover the materials you need from this system."

"That would be much appreciated, I would like to finally be able to finish this project," Nohu replied.

A few hours later Teal'c was still standing in front of one of the large windows looking out over the city ships. He had never seen himself as a person who would find history or science interesting, not after having worked side by side with both Daniel and Sam, but for each answer that Nohu gave him his interest in the history of the Alterra and the technology used to build the city ships grew and more questions formed in his mind.

"How did the Alterra plan on moving the cities out of this facility?" Teal'c asked.

"A very good question as always Master Teal'c," Nohu replied. "If the Alterra had a plan for that I was not informed. However I do think that they simply would have opened the roof of this facility, the shields would not have any issues deflecting a few tons of dirt and stone. It would then be a simple matter of flying the cities out of here and into deep space."

"That solutions seems far simpler than what I have come to expect of the Alterra," Teal'c said.

"Perhaps you are correct Master Teal'c, predicting how the Alterra would have done it is not easily done now that some much time has passed. How you will do it at is another matter entirely, but it seems that such a discussion will need to wait. It seems your men require your attention," Nohu said, bringing attention to the line of Jaffa who had not even dared to enter the room.

"It seems so, I shall hope that we may continue this conversation at a later time." Teal'c bowed to the hologram and left the room.

"Master Teal'c, there is something you must see," the Jaffa standing at the front of the row said.

"Why did you not inform me earlier?" Teal'c asked.

"It seemed as if you did not wish to be disturbed."

"Of course I would not, but if something requires my attention I need to know about it, do I not?"

"Of course Master Teal'c, it will not happen again."

"Good. Now take me to what it is that I need to see," Teal'c ordered.

"Yes Master Teal'c. Please come with me," the Jaffa said.

"I will." Teal'c turned to the other Jaffa in the corridor. "Is there something urgent any of you require first?"

One of the Jaffa took a step forward. "Master Teal'c, the fleet wishes to know what your orders are."

"I want them to take a defensive positions above this facility. Ask the Travelers if they can find some sort of data among the debris about this galaxy and the inhabitants," Teal'c ordered.

"We shall see to it." The Jaffa bowed and ran away through the corridor.

"We will await your return Master Teal'c," another Jaffa said.

The first Jaffa had walked several meters down the corridor and awaited Teal'c. "It is on the surface near the entrance."

"Then we shall go there straight away." Teal'c pulled the Jaffa with him into a small room. The panel sitting opposite the door slid open and showed a map of the entire complex. The transporter network was something Nohu had told him about. He pressed a blue dot near the entrance and the two were transported to another transporter booth just a few meters inside the entrance.

The Jaffa led Teal'c forward in silence between the crumbling shacks that were houses for several minutes until he stopped in front of a hole in one of the shacks.

"It's inside Master Teal'c."


	10. Chapter 10 Qeanx

Qeanx had been lying on the floor inside the large cage she and the other Coulk had been sharing for a very long time. It was hard to tell time when the only indication was the light coming in through the single opening in one of the walls but several thousand planetary rotations must have passed since she had been thrown into the cage. She had been awakened by the sound of the firefight outside but it was nothing unusual, arguments between their captors was common. Now that quite some time had passed however four aliens with strange markings were standing guard outside the cage with a fifth having left some time ago, now a sixth alien was walking into the room and the way the four inside the building reacted told her that he was in charged. She closed her primary pair of eyes and opened her secondary pair, they told her that the tattoo on his forehead was actually metal but that there was nothing very strange with him otherwise, but he was unlike any species she had seen before and she had seen many coming through the camp. It was always the task of the Coulk to tell their captors about anything strange with new captives, the only reason they had not been sold already.

When he began to speak she switched back to her primary eye pair and tried to focus on what he said. She had spoken with many strange aliens and knew more than a handful of languages but what he spoke was like nothing she had heard before. He spoke for almost a minute before he understood that she did not understand him.

"I am sorry but I do not know what language you speak," she said.

It took a second before he spoke again, when he stopped speaking a synthesized voice came from a device on his chest. He then spoke again and this time the synthetic voice spoke moments after.

 _ **"Hello. My name is Teal'c of the Altera, formerly of the Jaffa,"**_ the synthetic voice said, this time in her own language.

"I am Qeanx. Do you have someone you wish me to inspect? Or have you come to purchase one of us?" she asked, a few moments later the synthetic voice spoke in the strange language and it was not hard to realise that it was translating for them. The other fifteen or so Coulk were scooting back to the other side of the cage, they were all much younger than her and she had become their leader over time.

 _ **"The Alterra do not trade in living beings. We only came here to recover our facility here on the planet,"**_ the synthetic voice said.

"And what of our captors? They will not allow you to remain on this planet, their fleet can bomb you from orbit. They keep almost all their goods here, it is only because of the monetary loss that they would sustain that they have not begun their bombardment already."

 _ **"They no longer have any ships in this system. We are here simply to recover what we abandoned long ago, we wished not to destroy them but they refused to listen so there was no other choice,"**_ the voice explained.

If the voice was telling the truth they had just done in one day what governments of planets had tried to do for a number of decades now. "If what you say is true then I am glad. Will you please return us to our homes?"

 _ **"If we can then perhaps we will. But before you are allowed out of this cage I would like to know how you all came to be here,"**_ the voice said.

"I was Captain of a small ship that came to this system as part of a large interplanetary fleet seeking to bring a stop to the violence that the pirates that held this system caused. However things didn't go as we had thought and the pirates overwhelmed us, I was captured along with my crew. I have heard the stories of many battles since then but never once have they suffered defeat, some say that the pirates of this world are guided by an angry god." For the first time she saw a reaction on Teal'c's face, it was small and quick but it was there nonetheless.

When Teal'c spoke there was clearly anger in his voice, but the synthetic voice relayed none of it. _**"There are only false gods and false gods die by my hand. We will take you home when we are done here."**_

"Then will you please free us so that we may free the others?" she asked hopefully, if it was one thing she knew it was that no one in this galaxy would be ready to free her and the others simply because of the price they would fetch.

Teal'c said something but the synthetic voice stayed quiet, moments later the four guards in the room turned towards the cage with their staffs clearly ready for battle. She backed away from the front of the cage unsure if the guards would truly attack them and severely decrease their value. From the tip of each staff a flash of orange energy shot forward and hit the hinges and locks on the door that then promptly fell into the room.

 _ **"These four will assist you, should you find any pirates hiding among the captives they will also be dealt with."**_

Perhaps these people were not that bad, she thought while she hesitantly walked forward to the open door. She hesitated a few more seconds before she strode forward to Teal'c and dropped to both knees, she pressed her head against the floor between his boots and behind her she heard the young hurry forward to do the same. "We will be ever grateful my Lord," she spoke into the floor. It seemed the one called Teal'c did not appreciate her being so close as he took several steps backwards.

 _ **"I do not wish for you to crawl before me, rise and do what you will"**_

She hurried to get up to not anger him. "I am sorry my Lord."

 _ **"I shall send for you when we are ready. Until then I will have meals and drinks prepared, do you know how many are held captive on this planet?"**_

"I do not my Lord, I have not left this building in many thousands of rotations. What little I know comes from our guards, surely we number in the thousands."

 _ **"We will do what we can to make sure that we all return you home."**_

Without saying anything else Teal'c walked out of the building.

Qeanx stood there for a few seconds before she hurried out of the building, she was quite old for a Coulk and her very pale skin burned in the sun, but it felt nice despite the pain.

###

Four hours later Daniel arrived through the gate inside Haenus to find Teal'c and a group of armed guards.

"It is good to see you Daniel," Teal'c said and gave him a light bow.

"I'm glad to see you too Teal'c. You said that you had encountered several new species in this galaxy?" Daniel replied as they left the room.

"Indeed. It seems this galaxy holds many surprises. I believe that you may be better suited to handle them than I am."

"I'm sure you would do just fine."

"Perhaps." Teal'c tapped the combadge and connected to his command ship in orbit. "Locate the woman called Qeanx and transport us all to her."

-She is located with the majority of the people near the feeding area, stand by for beaming,- someone on the ship responded. The transporter placed them in a large sand field were thousands of people were walking around between tables. Each table was filled with food, nothing fancy but good enough to eat, and next to each table a water dispenser with glasses was standing. Near one of the tables Qeanx was standing with the other Coulk.

"She speaks a language I do not understand, but the Alterra created an AI on this world called Nohu that I have used to translate for us using the com badges," Teal'c explained as he walked them forward to Qeanx. The rest of the Coulk took a few careful steps backwards as they saw them approaching.

"That works," Daniel said. He stepped in front of Teal'c and gave the woman a deep bow, Daniel had grown used to the human like aliens in the Milky Way and in Pegasus but this race was far more alien than what he was used to, something he found strangely refreshing. "My name is Doctor Daniel Jackson." He heard his own com badge say something in a strange language.

 _ **"I am Qeanx,"**_ she answered.

"It is a pleasure to meet you. I hope the food is good enough for you."

She gave him a slight smile. _**"It is the best food any of us have had in several years. Is there something I can do for you?"**_

"We are always looking to make new friends in this galaxy, so if you have had all the food you wish for I think it is time that we bring you home."

She put down the plate and glass in her hand straight away. _**"I know that it will take a long time to return home but may we leave soon?"**_

"Of course, as soon as you feel that you are ready we will transport to one of our ships and leave straight away," Daniel explained.

 _ **"We are all ready to leave,"**_ she said.

"Then we shall leave for your homeworld right away, if you want some of your friends may join us, otherwise they can come later."

 _ **"We will all go,"**_ she said.

"Perfect." Daniel turned to Teal'c. "I will return when we have made contact with her people."

"We will keep this facility safe in the meantime," Teal'c responded.

Daniel gave Teal'c a respectful nod before he and the Coulk vanished in a flash of light. They reappeared on the bridge of one of the Hermes class ships.

"Doctor Jackson, welcome to the Cromwell," the Captain of the ship said from the control chair.

"Thank you Captain. I'd like to see the galaxy map."

"Of course Doctor." Moments later the galaxy map appeared above their heads.

Daniel turned to Qeanx. "Could you please point out your planet?"

Qeanx stood still and blinked with both pair of eyes for several minutes, until she finally spoke. _**"Is this a map of our entire galaxy?"**_

"Yes, we have not had the time to map it fully again, but using science we have predicted stellar drift to supplement our sensor readings. When we get closer to the area that you inhabit we will perform a more accurate scan of the area."

 _ **"It is so large. I do not know where we are in this galaxy."**_

"Alright." Daniel sent a mental command to the ship and and a green dot appeared to show the location of Haenus in the galaxy. "Here is where we are at the moment."

 _ **"Then we must be in this circle."**_ She drew a circle in the air around the green dot, mentally Daniel zoomed in on the circle, it encompassed only a few dozen star systems.

"That is a very small area. Only a few thousand light years." Next to him Qeanx was jumping up and down in excitement.

 _ **"That is home, that is where we come from."**_ She marked a star system only a few hundred light years from Haenus.

"Then we will leave." Daniel turned to the Captain. "You have a destination, take us to hyperspace."

"Yes Doctor Jackson. Helm set a course, maximum speed." The ship lunged forward along with the two escorting ships and stayed in hyperspace for a handful of seconds before dropping out far outside the system.

Three red dwarfs were orbiting each other at the center of the system and six planets were orbiting them, four of which were clearly inhabitable. Qeanx and the other Coulk rushed past Daniel up to the viewport.

"Can we get an extensive scan of the system?" Daniel asked.

"We are already scanning Doctor," the Captain reported. On the viewport numbers began to show as the sensors detected things in the system, including the millions of souls living on the surface of three of the planets, but no gate.

 _ **"You are clearly a race far more advanced than we could ever imagine, such a journey would take us many months."**_

"We are advanced yes, but you may learn from us what you wish to know," Daniel said. "Which planet should we take you to? I wish to be introduced to you government."

"Doctor, we have five incoming fighters," the Captain reported. The viewport zoomed in to highlight five small crafts leaving orbit of one planet and rushing towards them. A few moments later the sensors reported the specs of the fighters; jet propulsion, automatic cannons and missiles. Because they used jet engines it would take hours before the fighters reached them.

"I'm not sure they are any threat to us," Daniel responded before turning to Qeanx. "I would like you to transmit a message to them, so that we will not be attacked."

 _ **"Of course, where shall I sit?"**_

"Simply speak and we will send it," Daniel said.

She cleared her throat and looked at the viewport. _**"This is Qeanx, former captain of the Udegbulam. We have been rescued from the pirates and our saviors wish to return us home. Please do not attack this ship, contact the council and inform them that we have made first contact with a new and very advanced race."**_

"Transmit on both subspace channels and radio waves," Daniel ordered.

"Of course Doctor Jackson, it will take twenty seven minutes before they receive the message if they are using radio waves," the Captain reported.

"That's too long, pick a point where we can talk with them in a reasonable time without having to engage any ships in the system," Daniel ordered.

"Our sensors detect no other ships in the system, a respectfully high orbit around one of the planets could work."

 _ **"Are you sure? When I left we had a fleet of several hundred ships, to think that only five small fighters remain is hard."**_

"I have a hard time seeing your people hide an entire fleet from our sensors," Daniel said. "Take us in Captain. Repeat our message when we arrive."

A micro jump took the ships into high orbit of one of the inhabited planets.

"We have an incoming message," the Captain said a few minutes later.

"Show it or let us hear it."

A male Coulk appeared on the viewport, it was clear that he was sitting in the small cockpit of a fighter. _**"It seems you have technology far beyond us, we will not attack. The council will meet with you as soon as they are able on the station in orbit."**_

"Thank you, I am sure you will not be dissapointed," Daniel replied.

"It was simply a message Doctor, he can not hear you," the Captain said. "The message also contained coordinates for a very small space elevator station in quite a low orbit."

"Set a course, no hyperspace or FTL. Have our escort fall back as we approach."


	11. Chapter 11 Coulk

The small space station that was attached to the end of the space elevator was sitting in front of the Hermes-class ship that Daniel was commanding and that was dwarfing the station.

 _ **"You may dock to the airlock,"**_ the disembodied voice of a Coulk said.

"Doctor, we will not be able to dock with the airlock," the Captain informed.

"Beam us over," Daniel ordered.

"Alone?"

"The Coulk as well, I can take two Jaffa guards as well," Daniel informed.

"That is better," the Captain said before a white light encompassed Daniel, the Coulk and two of the Jaffa guards on the bridge.

When the light faded they all found themselves standing on the inside of the airlock of the station. Several Coulk guards were standing before them and drew their weapons when the Daniel and the group materialised. Qeanx saw the weapons being drawn and jumped in between the two groups.

 _ **"What do you think that you are doing?"**_ Qeanx yelled.

 _ **"We told them to use the airlock, yet here they are without having used the airlock,"**_ a Coulk said. She strode forward from a corridor without a weapon drawn. Qeanx countered and walked up into the new Coulk's face. The other Coulk was rather pale but nowhere as pale as Qeanx and therefore nowhere near as old.

Qeanx clenched her fist and punched the other Coulk across the face hard enough to drop the other Coulk to the floor. _**"They stand far above such things, as you can see they have no use for airlocks. Now take us to the Council."**_ For a few seconds Qeanx was unsure if she still held a high position due to her age or even if she would be respected for it, but when the other Coulk rose up from the floor with a bowed head she knew that things were as they should.

The scene unfolding before him was strange but Daniel knew better than to step in, instead he let it go through and followed Qeanx when she followed the other Coulk out of the room. Daniel watched the designs of the walls and machinery in the station carefully, it was all made from some sort of green plastic material with bits and pieces of metal here and there but everything was made with large curves in their design. They only walked out of the room and into the room next door where two rather pale female Coulk, not as pale as Qeanx, were sitting along the table. In a corner of the room a table was standing with warm food and some sort of drink and judging by all the chairs and tables that were stacked along the walls they were in the messhall of the station.

 _ **"Come and sitt, the other will be here soon,"**_ one of the Coulk said.

Daniel gave them a friendly smile and walked up to the table, he pulled out one of the chairs at the end of the table and sat down. Qeanx followed him and sat down next to him. "Wait outside," Daniel ordered the Jaffa without even looking at them. Quickly both Jaffa bowed and stepped out of the room, the Coulk guards followed behind them.

 _ **"We have been told that you have taken out the pirates that have been causing issues,"**_ one of the Coulk said.

"Well one of our fleets went to recover a piece of technology there, it was not a military fleet but it was forced to defend itself," Daniel explained, carefully choosing the words to make sure they did not seem threatening but that the Coulk still understood their power. "We discovered some of your people there and have come to return them. If we can we would also be happy to establish relations with your people."

 _ **"What price do you ask for their return?"**_

Daniel shrugged. "Nothing material, simply that you see that we do not wish you harm."

 _ **"I find it strange that you would like to simply give them back, why?"**_

"Because we think that everyone deserves to be free."

 _ **"Then we are free to return them to their families?"**_

"Of course. These are those that we have now, but with your permission we will place a gate on one of your planets so that any other we find can return too, as well as any other races who may wish to come here to trade."

 _ **"Our scientists will need to study this gate first, so that we are sure it is no threat to us."**_

"You may, you will learn many things from it."

 _ **"Then you may, place it far from any city and we will take care of it."**_

Daniel tapped his com badge. "Captain, place the spare gate somewhere on the planet where it is far from a city." Because there were spare gates in the unfinished cities in Haenus one had been brought along.

-Copy that, we will set it up.- For now it was a gate, but no DHD.

The green plastical door opened with a hiss and six more female Coulk walked inside. While it was nothing very clear they all gave Qeanx a disturbed look. The newly arrived Coulk sat down around the table, but only after passing by Qeanx and placing their hands on her shoulders one by one.

Daniel leaned close to Qeanx and whispered. "What are they doing?"

 _ **"It is strange, the council is always made up of the oldest Coulk but as you can see on their skin they are much younger. They just-"**_ Qeanx informed.

 _ **"Now that we are all gathered here,"**_ one of the two original Coulk interrupted, clearly drawing the eir of the others. _**"The alien has offered to return some of the people taken from us by the pirates. They have only asked for friendship in return, do we accept?"**_

Confused looks were exchanged between the Coulk.

 _ **"Why would you wish to return them without a price?"**_ one of the newly arrived Coulk asked.

"Because we think that all sentient life can choose their own fate, these former slaves have not done that."

 _ **"If that is all, then we must accept,"**_ another said.

 _ **"We vote,"**_ someone said.

They all placed a single black card on the table in front of them, some hesitated and casted glances towards Qeanx. When everyone had placed the cards on the table they placed their hands under the table. A few seconds passed before the cards shifted and all but one showed a white circle.

 _ **"Then they are welcome back."**_

 _ **"I am most grateful,"**_ Qeanx said.

One of the Coulk rose up from the table and dropped her card and necklace on the table. While the Coulk walked out of the room the card and necklace was pushed over to Qeanx.

 _ **"You are the oldest among us. You have a place among the council,"**_ one of the Coulk said.

 _ **"Before I take this seat I wish to return and walk among out people to see how things have changed,"**_ Qeanx said.

 _ **"Of course, I think we all understand your wish. But I think that we will need to deal with these new aliens first."**_

"I can return here in a few days, there are many other species I need to return home. In understand that you may need some time to procces this and that is fine," Daniel said.

 _ **"Your ships are that quick?"**_

"Yes, our ships are very quick. The gate we have placed on the surface is even faster."

 _ **"As long as you come in peace you are welcome here,"**_ Qeanx said.

"Then I will return in a few days time, until then please do not touch the gate, I will come through it."

 _ **"We will leave it be."**_

Daniel stood up and bowed deeply before pressing his com badge. "Captain we are ready to leave, just me and the Jaffa."

-Standy by to beam.-

All the Coulk looked in awe as Daniel was embraced in a flash of light.


	12. Chapter 12 Camille

A few days had passed since Daniel had returned to the Coulk homeworld to continue diplomatic relations, now he was sitting with Jack, Sam and Mokar in a conference room on Atlantis discussing what he had learned about Lega.

"So Teal'c saved a bunch of people from pirates and slavers, then you brought them home? That sounds like a good day's work," Jack said.

"Yes, but all these peoples come from a very small portion of space, here in Pegasus and back in the Milky Way humans are common but other races are very rare. We have meet less than fifty races in both the Milky Way and in Pegasus. In Lega there are sixty four races living in a four thousand light year radius from Haenus. I am surprised that we have found so many races in such a small area, we need to send more ships there to explore the rest," Daniel argued.

"You know well that we do not have the people for that Daniel," Sam said.

"Perhaps we do," Mokar said.

"Sure, the Asurans are great labor, but I doubt we want them to explore for us," Jack said.

"But there is also Earth," Mokar said. "Daniel, how far along has Earth come? Could they become a vassal?"

"Well it is a hard case, Earth has accomplished many things that have been destroyed now," Daniel said. "Which means that it's hard to say how ready Earth is, on the other hand everything on Earth is being reforged at the moment so it could be a good time to move in and help."

"Is that alright? I thought we tried not to intervene with lesser races," Jack said.

"We were that lesser races Jack," Sam reminded.

"I think the damage is already done General," Mokar said. "Daniel, do you think that there is a way for you to guide Earth? For Earth to learn? They are part of our evolutionary ladder, perhaps they belong in the Alterran race rather than as a vasal."

"I am sure that they can be guided. And I agree, humans are only primitive Alterra. They belong with us. The situation in Lega is as close to perfect as we can get. As I have said there are at the moment sixty four new races there, each has been under the threat from pirates for decades. The pirates also took slaves but no one knows where the slaves were taken or who bought them. But the sensor logs from Haenus shows that the ships that bought the slaves were also very primitive, we can give humans technology and a handful of ships, nothing fancy, and let them explore the galaxy without fear. It is the perfect playground, a place for them to learn about the universe, spaceships and colonies."

"Are you sure about this Daniel?" Jack muttered. "Letting humans run free could be a bad idea."

"But we're not going to let them run free, we will not be able to build a lot of ships for them. A few to start with and we place a Lantean on each one as advisors, that way we can train them and any people that earn it can be evolved to a Lantean for future work as advisors or inside our forces. To make sure that they do not feel inferior we could also offer them work as teachers for the less advanced humans and perhaps even for the Jaffa."

"If you feel that this is something you can do Daniel? I think it is a good idea," Sam said. "It will cause some work for us to design new ships for them, but if we work off the 304 we can have something simple ready for them inside of a month, if we use the Nest I think we can build three each week."

"I think that sounds good, but I want at least a few Alterran ships in Lega in case they discover something they can not handle," Mokar said.

"Fine, if we're doing this then I think we start with Teal'c's ships, they can hold a few more people so I say we send the first captains-to-be there to learn what the Jaffa and the Travelers have to teach," Jack said. "That way we have a few Alterran ships there until we can send a few heavier ships there and send Teal'c on his way."

"Good thinking O'Neil," Mokar said. "Daniel, if we are giving them a free pass here I think there is also no reason to keep back technology from them on Earth, use whatever technology you see fit in their new cities, but make sure they know that when they reach out into the universe we will only hold their hand. We will not give them everything we have, but on Earth we may as well build cities to last through the ages without them having to rebuild them every time they learn new technology."

"That's fine," Daniel said and nodded thoughtfully, he had just gotten more work than he expected.

"I will leave this all to you then Daniel, make sure you don't screw this up," Jack said as he stood up and beamed away.

"I trust you to make the right thing Daniel," Sam said as she followed Jack.

When it was only Mokar and Daniel left Mokar got up and looked out over the city bellow. "I am sure that you will do the right thing Daniel, but I am sceptical about the humans. Still I trust that you can keep them in line, make sure you do not disappoint me."

Before Daniel could respond Mokar beamed away. Seeing no reason to stay Daniel beamed to the gate room while also sending a mental command to dial the gate. When Daniel reappeared he could see the annoyed look he got from the technician manning the gate console, the Alterra mentally activated the gate so often the technicians felt unneeded up there. Daniel gave him an apologetic look before he walked through to Earth.

When Daniel appeared on Earth he saw the new gate room in the single large spire that had been created so far as the new Alterran base of operations on Earth. It was built much like Atlantis but so far it was still a construction site and the floor was a metal grate. He walked up to a window and watched out over the construction sites bellow where other towers and buildings were being constructed. It only took a few seconds before Sheppard beamed into the room and hurried up to Daniel.

"Any news?" Sheppard asked. He had been overseeing day to day work on Earth while Daniel took care of the diplomacy and long term logistics.

"Yes, I have some news. Teal'c has stumbled across a huge number of races in the Lega galaxy and now we are going to explore it, who knows what we will find there."

Sheppard let out a groan and stared at Daniel for a few seconds. Their resources were already spread thin and their personnel even more so. "An entirely new galaxy? We don't have the people to deal with things here and in Pegasus. Who came up with that stupid idea? Our supply lines will collapse."

"It was my idea actually," Daniel said proudly. "As far as we know Lega is primitive, it could be a good place to train new ship crews."

"Where are you going to get recruits from? Everyone in our ranks are veterans by now."

"From Earth, now is a good a time as any for us to take in new recruits from here, we can bolster our numbers enough to face the wraith and in time the Ori."

"I thought you said Earth was not advanced enough?" Sheppard asked, more than a bit confused.

"Well Earth used to be advanced enough and things change over time. Just trust me on this Colonel."

"Fine," Sheppard said. He was still slightly annoyed and confused, but he knew the things Daniel, Colonel Carter and General O'Neill had managed to do at times and they most often worked.

Daniel stepped over to the nearby consoles. "Here is something for you to get excited about Colonel." He pressed his hand against the console and connected to the the database through the mental interface. They had locked out almost everything the Alterran had invented the last thousand years of their reign but now Daniel was unlocking everything for Sheppard to use. Or at least almost everything, there were still a few secrets Mokar wanted to keep under lock and key.

"Daniel, what are you doing?" Sheppard asked with a worried tone.

"We have free reigns from here on Colonel, I think it is best if you have access to everything you could ever need. Maximise our resource collection with whatever technology you want, go crazy. Whatever we can spare in resource way needs to be going to the transport ring network we talked about, if we'll be recruiting people they need to be able to get here."

For the first time in several weeks Sheppard was happy, the Asurans had been great relieve but had gone towards keeping projects on track but with this he could have some fun and do some crazy stuff he had not been allowed to do. He knew Daniel would be surprised by some of the ideas he had. "Well, I will see what I can do but without plenty of resources I know that it will be hard to make use of this technology."

"Then I suggest that you get started on resources Colonel," Daniel said with a smile.

"Oh I will."

"You will have to excuse me now, I need to take this up with Miss Wray and their council. Then I need to prepare a speech."

"No need for you to wait for me," Sheppard said with a hint of excitement. A moment later he beamed away.

Daniel shook his head before he turned to one of the technicians. "Could you please locate Miss Camille Wray for me, tell her that I will come meet her when she can."

"Yes Sir, I will locate her," the technician said. He began to work on his console to find Camille.

As Daniel turned around and walked away he began to hum a catchy tune, things were going good.

When Daniel beamed to her Camille was standing in the center of a park in Bay City, one of the new cities the Alterra were building. The park was a patchwork of grass and mud from the construction work going on all around them but there were still hundreds of people walking through out the park looking at the construction work. It was amazing even to Daniel how quickly the Asurans were building, two towers were already looming far above and hundreds of towers were starting to grow up around them. To Daniels surprise he could see several humans running after the Asurans with equipment and materials.

"Welcome Doctor Jackson," Camille said when she saw him.

"Thank you, I am glad that you had time to see me," Daniel said, dropping his other thoughts.

"It sounded as if it was something urgent, has something happened?"

"Come, let us walk. I have not yet had the time to see the cities in person." He took a few steps towards one of the streets and she followed by his side.

"Then it's not urgent?"

"No no no, not urgent at all. But I think that we need to make preparations in time."

"What is it that we need to prepare for?" she asked. They turned into another street and meet a single Asuran carrying a huge steel beam, a few meters behind it a large pack of humans were carrying a slightly smaller beam.

"It's amazing to see these Asurans work, is it not?"

"Yes, they work hard around the clock. Now what was it that you said that we need to prepare for?"

"In an effort to help Earth recover and regain technology we will be offering to recruit and train people in the use of space ships, colonies and galactical diplomacy. We hope that some will choose to remain with us, but otherwise they will return home with new knowledge to help you."

"I understand that they may learn much, but how will it help Earth recover? You are providing a lot more resources than we will be able to produce for years, even with better knowledge and technology."

"I will be honest with you, there is only about one or two thousand Lanteans at the moment and less than ten Alterra, one of our main concerns are manpower. We hope that some will choose to remain with us after training so that we can grow our numbers, with more people we can increase our resource flow going to Earth."

"I thought the Alterra thought we were too primitive?"

"Yes, in one way humans are," Daniel said. They stepped out onto one of the main streets and saw thousands of people walking up and down the street with tools and materials. "But in another way humans are advanced, before all of this happened Earth was one of the most advanced civilisations in several galaxies. We helped the Asgard solve several of their problems and we took down the Goa'uld. I think Earth deserves a place in the galaxy. But I also know what happens if humans from Earth just get thrown into the galaxy, we have caused chaos and destruction when we did not think first."

"You mean that you think of us like children?" Camille asked.

"Yes that is one way of seeing it, but I'd say more like teenagers. Old enough to be smart, clever and responsible but also young enough to be stupid and cause trouble for others. I think a guiding hand would be good."

"And why would we accept such a view placed over us?"

"Because we offer you a chance to prove that you will behave among the stars."

"I have heard some grumbling from some parts of the population that the Alterra are holding us away from the stars, maybe, just maybe, this can be good for everyone."

"So people are feeling like we are holding them back?" Daniel asked thoughtfully,

"Some."

"We will need to see to that. We wish what's best for everyone."

"I know that Doctor Jackson, but not everyone can be pleased."

"I know that, but the universe is a large place and I am sure most can find a place that suits them." Daniel turned into a building with a large lobby and sat down on a bench that was standing there. "How about we start with a colony? The Jaffa already has one in Pegasus, we can easily create a small colony where the most adventurous can carve out a new existence. A place where new recruits can start their training."

"That seems like a safe start."

"Then we will start there," Daniel said.


	13. Chapter 13 Shuttle take off

Rodney was standing in the middle of a large open field behind Destiny with Colonel Young and several of the other members of the expedition. He tapped his combadge once. "Lieutenant Scott, please proceed through the launch sequence."

-Copy that,- Scott answered. A few seconds later a large section of grass vanished to reveal a metal plate that began to retract. A few meters below ground was a drydock that held a newly built Destiny style shuttle. Rodney had chosen not to change the looks of the shuttles, but he had done everything to upgrade the systems but what was most important for now was the ZPM socket sitting behind the pilot and a hyperdrive.

Slowly the shuttle rose up from the drydock. When it was above the surface it angled upwards and vanished in a cloud of dust.

"Good work Doctor McKay, I'm impressed by the work you've done here," Young said.

"It's only a few minor modifications of an already decent design," Rodney said.

###

Above them in the shuttle Scott and Greer were sitting in the pilot's and gunner's seat respectively. Scott had pushed the shuttle forward at top speed, with the new inertial dampeners and drive pods it was flying more like the puddle jumpers, it was much more nimble and quicker. It did not take long before they were in space.

"Weapons ready," Greer reported. They had towed an asteroid into orbit a few days earlier.

"Fire at will," Scott answered. When they were in range of the asteroid Greer pressed a few buttons, in response a hatch opened on the underside of the shuttle and an APB lowered into position. It took a few moments before it fired and almost vaporized the asteroid. Greer pressed another button to retract the APB and then switched to the plasma weapons to clear away the rest of the debris.

"I think these will do," Greer said with a smile stretching across his face.

"Weapons and sub-light drive tests are completed and acceptable," Scott said into his com badge.

-Copy that Lieutenant, if you're feeling good about this go ahead with the next test,- Rodney answered.

"Stand ready for hyperdrive test," Scott said.

-Take things slow Lieutenant, I want you and Sergeant Greer back here in one piece,- Young cautioned.

"We'll keep it safe Sir," Greer said.

Moments later Scott activated the hyperdrive and the small shuttle jumped away. The blue hue of subspace was flowing over the shuttle for a few minutes before Scott was satisfied with the readings he was getting and deactivate the hyperdrive.

"Lieutenant Scott calling base, do you read?" Scott said. The distance was too long for the com badges to work so he had to activate the subspace transmitter.

It took a few seconds before they got an answer. -We read you loud and clear Lieutenant,- Young replied.

-I take it the hyperdrive and the subspace transmitter is working as expected?- Rodney asked.

Scott took a second to inspect one of the consoles. "Everything is working as expected."

-Go ahead and install the ZPM then,- Rodney said.

"Installing ZPM," Greer said. He had already moved over to the center of the bridge where a small gray crate was standing, he opened it and pulled out the ZPM from inside. Then he slid the ZPM into the single slot and watched it light up.

"I think we're ready to go to the Novus colony," Scott concluded.

-Take care Lieutenant,- Young said.

-Stay safe Matt,- Chloe said.

"We will," Scott said. He looked at Greer who nodded before he input the coordinates and they jumped away.

###

Back down inside the base Rodney turned off the subspace transmitter and stepped away from the console. Both he and his wife was due to return back to Atlantis in a few minutes, sending of the shuttle was the last thing on his to do list because Eli was feeling better and would take over. Apparently someone had also been picked as a doctor.

"It's been good having you around Doctor McKay," Young said. He picked up Rodney's duffle bag from the floor and motioned for the corridor leading towards the gate.

"It's been fun seeing Destiny in person, I'll be back to see you off when Destiny is ready to leave this planet," Rodney promised. They walked through the corridors of the base until they reached the gate room. The gate was already active and Jennifer stood in front of it along with TJ.

"About time you got here," Jennifer said.

Rodney took the bag from Young and stepped up to his wife. "I did what I could to get here in time." He gave her a light kiss before looking to TJ. "Why is she here?"

"She knows the expedition better than anyone and already has some experience with strange alien things, so she'll be taking up the mantle of doctor here after a quick course in advanced medicine," Jennifer responded.

"Alright," Rodney said. Then he stepped into the event horizon.

On the other side of the gate they were faced with Atlantis' gate room. Rodney let out a sigh of relief as he breathed in the clean air of Atlantis, it was good to be home.

Mokar was there straight away and greeted them. "I take it the launch went well Doctor?"

"Of course, you thought it would explode or something?" Rodney countered.

"I would think nothing like that," Mokar answered. Then he turned away from Rodney to the two ladies. "We have some work to do, shall we get going?"

"Lets," Jennifer said and motioned for him to lead.

"I guess I'll take care of these," Rodney shouted after them and gestured towards Jennifer's two large suitcases that were standing next to his duffle bag.

"Thank you honey," Jennifer yelled back moments before she, TJ and Mokar turned a corner.

When they walked into the infirmary a few minutes later Doctor Beckett was standing by one of the Alterran medical beds where a soldier was lying. When he saw them he handed his datapad to the nurse next to him and stepped up to them. "How are the two lasses feeling?"

"We're fine Carson. How are you yourself?" Jennifer asked.

"Honestly I'm a bit nervous, I'm having a hard time seeing how it's safe to pull and push knowledge between brains the way the Alterra does," Beckett said.

"It's perfectly safe Doctor Beckett, the repositories that General O'Neill used several times was created using this technology. It's been used on thousands of Alterra without side effects. It will allow you to choose what you want to pass on, it will not take the memories you wish to keep to yourself," Mokar assured.

"You've seen what the Alterra can do Carson, they were smart. I'm sure we'll be fine," Jennifer said. She had walked past him into an adjacent room with several more beds.

Beckett hurried after her into the room where she was already lying down on one of the beds. "Yes I've seen what they can do and I've seen how bad things can get when their technology is involved. A lot of things here in Pegasus is their fault."

"I do wish to point out that most of the chaos here in Pegasus is on the hands of the Lanteans, not the Alterra," Mokar said. He followed the two together with TJ into the room. While Jennifer, Beckett and TJ each took a bed he walked over to one of the cabinets and brought out a small sealed case. When he returned with it they were all lying down on their beds calmly, except for Beckett who was twisting and turning on the bed. Mokar placed his free hand on Beckett's forehead and mentally forced him to calm down, Mokar did not like having to use his powers on his allies but here he saw no other way. With Beckett finally calm on the bed Mokar opened the case and handed out three of the small triangles sitting inside.

"Place them on your right temple and relax," Mokar instructed them. One by one they pushed the triangles against their skin and felt the slightest of stings as miniature needles pierced the skin.

###

A white light flashed before Beckett's eyes and he found himself standing in a grass field surrounded by buildings and familiar locations. He saw the stone cottage he had been raised in standing right next to him, behind it the school buildings and universities he had studied at were standing and far of in the distance he could see the spires of Atlantis looming.

In the back of his head he heard a soft female voice. _"Welcome. This mental reality has been constructed by your own brain to allow you to sort through the memories and knowledge you have, it will manifest differently for everyone but you can discard memories and knowledge by focusing on them, anything you leave here will be uploaded to the memory storage."_

Beckett walked forward to the stone cottage and placed his hand on the handle. It had been a long time since he had seen the cottage and he could hear the familiar voices coming from inside and the smell of his mothers stew was creeping out through the door. He pressed down the handle and pushed the door open, inside he could see his mother setting the table for their family dinner.

"Come down, dinners ready," she yelled after a few minutes. From the floor above a horde of feet began to trample as his siblings came rushing down the staircase a few seconds later, he saw himself pushing and shoving his siblings for the seats around the table. He watched the dinner scene unfold for a few minutes before he focused on it vanishing, it was a fond memory but nothing he thought anyone else should have.

Another memory of him in his teens sitting in the kitchen appeared before him. His younger self was sitting with a medical textbook marking sections when his mother walked in, she placed the mail on the table and slid an envelope across the table to him. His name was handwritten across the front and when his younger self turned it he saw the wax seal stamped with the seal of the Medical School of Edinburgh. Even if this was only a memory Beckett felt the excitement growing in his chest. He watched himself open his acceptance letter and shout in joy.

He knew there were hundreds of memories in this house but nothing with medical knowledge that would be of use. He focused and dismissed the entire house and watched as it vanished in a cloud of smoke. He found himself standing in the grassy field again, this time the dormitory where he had lived while he studied was standing before him. He knew the only place any knowledge could be found was his room on the third floor so he dismissed everything else and stepped into the room. He saw several versions of himself sitting around the room as well as his girlfriend of the time Maisy sitting on the small single bed. She was the first thing he dismissed, while it had been fun times it was his private moments. One by one he went through his memories in the room to determine what was worth keeping.

###

Back in the infirmary Mokar only had to wait a few seconds for Jennifer and Beckett to wake up, in the mental realities several days had passed and Beckett was showing the strain.

"Are you satisfied with what you have picked out?" Mokar asked.

"You're still here waiting?" Beckett asked.

"It has only been a few seconds here in the real world Doctor," Mokar explained.

"It feels like days."

"I imagine it would have."

"Well I for one think this was good. I'd forgotten so much," Jennifer said.

"I am glad," Mokar said. Next to him TJ opened her eyes and sat straight up. She clenched her forehead and pulled away the triangle.

"That hurt," TJ said.

"I am sorry if you are feeling any pain, your head will probably ache for a few days while your brain processes the knowledge and memories," Mokar said.

"So if she knows everything we now know why do we not do this to everyone?" Jennifer asked.

"Knowledge is not the same as understanding, given the amount of knowledge you have passed on I would say that it will take her many years to understand everything, even more than if she would have studied it normally. That's the downside, on the other hand her subconscious mind will guide her understanding so that she hopefully will understand things that are relevant to the current situation. Hopefully she will understand what she needs when she needs it, many things you have learned I am sure will not ever be relevant."

"I'll just lay down for a few days, this is a bit overwhelming," TJ said. She slumped back down on the bed with an arm over her face.

"Take the time you need, but I think that you will be returning to Destiny tomorrow," Mokar said.

"Fine," TJ groaned.


	14. Chapter 14 Bodies

Lya walked into the laboratory that the Asgard and Vanir had occupied for quite some time now, while it had started as three separate laboratories with one being shared between the Asgard and the Vanir the three labs had rather quickly been rebuilt into a single large lab. She had spent a few weeks helping the Asgard and now they had finally finished their work with her help. Eight newly constructed Asgard cloning pods were standing against the glass wall through which they could see the vast cloning hall, inside each pod was one of the new Asgard bodies that Lya had directed them towards. They looked almost like small humans, just around one and a half meters, but with a rather sizable head and elongated arms.

"So you feel that you are done?" Lya asked.

"Yes, with your help our work is finally done," Thor's disembodied voice said. He, Heimdall, Loki and Hermoid had uploaded themselves from their bodies to test the new bodies. Nytar, Ydar and the other two Vanir were standing in front of the pods ready to intervene if something went wrong.

"The Asgard will forever be in debt to the Nox and the Alterra," Nytar said.

"What about the Vanir?" Lya asked.

"The Vanir are no longer needed, we are all Asgard now. We set out to solve the cloning problem and it has now been solved, it's strange that no Asgard thought about asking the Nox," Ydar said.

"It was suggested many times, but the pride of the council did not allow it," Thor explained. "We also knew how the Nox felt about us and the Alterra."

"The Nox will give our help to those in need. No matter how we feel about a race we will help, even if our elders will not always offer it," Lya said.

"We will remember that, I think many of our kin will need help to accept all of this," Ydar said.

"Let us proceed," Loki said.

Blue lights around the surface of four of the pods flashed for a few moments, when they faded the four pods opened and a light mist rolled out across the floor. "I knew in my heart that the Nox would not turn us down, but without the council's approval it would not have been possible to get your aid," Thor said. He twisted his head to get a feel for his new body before he took a few hesitant step out of the pod. "You did good work on these bodies Lya, they appear to be very strong and agile."

"I concur," Hermoid said. He had stepped out of the pod and was walking around the room. "Though I am not sure about all this extra flesh hanging between my legs, it feels like it is in the way."

"How do you think this feels?" Heimdall asked and motioned towards her breasts.

"I think it may be time to start wearing clothes, I am sure the Alterra and the Lanteans will appreciate it as well," Lya suggested.

"I agree," Thor said. He walked over to one of the consoles, which were now far too low for his form. With a lot of effort he managed to bring up patterns for some of the Alterran clothes and materialised eight sets on the floor next to him. He reached down and held one out in front of him, it looked as if it would fit so he struggled to get into it. It had been many millennia since he had even tried to wear something on his body.

His comrades came up to him and began to get clothed, after a few minutes Lya and the four former Vanir gave up on the four and moved in to help them get clothed. It took almost half an hour before Thor and his companions were dressed in the simple white tunics. The tunics fit surprisingly well, except for the sleeves that only reached partway down their forearms.

"I believe that some of our effort will need to go towards clothing, I have seen very strange behavior from unclothed humans," Loki said.

"We will see to it in due time," Thor said.

"I take it that we are next then?" Nytar asked.

"Of course, you are free to go whenever you are ready," Thor said.

"We simply wished to be sure that the bodies were fine," Ydar said.

Together the four former Vanir loomed over to an alcove and vanished, a few seconds later the remaining four pods activated and they stepped out inside their new bodies.

Nytar twisted her head slightly as she stepped out. "You were correct Heimdall, this does feel strange."

"You will grow used to it in time," Lya assured them. "I assume you will begin to mass produce these bodies now?"

"Soon we will, there are several tests we will need to run before we can be sure that they are perfect for us," Thor said. "But with this Alterran technology I am sure that we can produce thousands of bodies each day, but we will be limited by the resources we can produce for ourselves. We can not be a strain on the Alterra."

"Then I will stay in Atlantis and wait until your people are ready to take bodies," Lya said. "I think the Alterra can use my skills with plants in the meantime."

"That would be good," Thor said. He tried to smile but it came over more as creepy.

"The Vanir have resources, it is not much but it is some. We have three small planets with bases and mines," Nytar said.

"The wraith are still a problem in this galaxy, should we not rebuild in peace? The Othalla galaxy is peaceful and contains a lot of Neutronium, that is where I think we should go," Thor said.

"We do not have the ships to bring the Vanir there," Nytar said.

"I agree, we do not have the resources to rebuild again," Loki said. "We have some infrastructure here in this galaxy, I say we stay here."

"There is one more thing I have not informed you about," Thor said. "We have a single advanced Asgard ship at our disposal and several older ships."

"How advanced?" Nytar asked.

"My second O'Neill-class ship, it is filled with raw materials and our most advanced technology," Thor said.

Hermoid twisted his head towards Thor. "Was that ship not destroyed many years ago?"

Thor gave him a twisted smile. "No, I faked an incident with the Neutrino-ion generators after I had it loaded with resources so that I could have the ship as a backup. It was the first step towards this betrayal of the council."

"That changes things," Loki said. "What other ships are you talking about?"

"Twenty two Bilskirnir-class vessels that I personally recovered after the Replicators were dealt with, they are still working but will require some minor repairs caused by the Replicators," Thor informed.

"You are a tricky one Thor, I did not think the Asgard could go against the rules of the council," Ydar said.

"The Vanir have some thirty small ships, but they are nothing compared to what you have told us about your ships, perhaps we can use them as shuttles," Nytar said.

"Where are these ships?" Heimdall asked. She knew well that all Asgard ships had highly advanced trackers installed to prevent theft.

"They are with the Omeyoca, the last place anyone would look for any of our ships." The relationship between the Omeyoca and the Asgard had always been tense ever since two of their fleets had wiped eachother out while chasing the same Goa'uld fleet, a small mistake in the eyes of the Asgard who simply downloaded themselves into new bodies and built new ships. For the Omeyoca it was very tasking to create even a single ship in the normal dimension, let alone an entire fleet, and it was rumored that even after two thousand years the fleet was still not restored to full power.

"And I assume we will need their help to recover our ships?" Loki asked.

"Indeed, it is their dimension after all," Thor said. "What remains of their species are in the vicinity of a planet in the Milky Way. Given the state of the Bilskirnir vessels I do not think we should fly them by remote, they will need at least one pilot each."

"I do not think the Vanir can fly your ships, that means that we will need to wake up nineteen more Asgards," Nytar said.

"Twenty, I will stay here and continue testing of the bodies," Heimdall said.

"If you wish we transfer twenty of each into the new bodies," Thor said. "It would be good if you learned to work our newer technology."

"I think that sounds reasonable, I assume you wish us to work in pairs?" Nytar said.

"That is what I thought."

"Then that is how we will do it."

"Remember to take care of the nature of the planet you pick," Lya reminded them.

"The Vanir have all long lived on toxic planets, I promise you that we will take care of plants and animals on the planet we choose," Ydar said.

"Then I will wait for you to call for me," Lya said with a smile. She headed for one of the doors leading out of the lab and walked through it.

"Heimdall, if you take care of the testing and creation of the bodies here then we will go to the Omeyoca and prepare our ships," Thor said. "Perhaps we can perform some minor repairs on the ships."

"I will stay here and assist Heimdall," Nytar said.

"Then the rest of us will leave. I shall speak with the Alterra first so that they know what we have achieved."

"We will meet you at the gate in an hour," Loki said.

"That will do." Thor worked the console in front of him and beamed away after a few seconds.

He had asked Atlantis to beam him to Mokar which meant that he beamed into a corridor right next to Mokar just in time to see Lya's back before she turned around a corner. Mokar walked a few steps around Thor, doing his best to look impressed at the familiar body. He could see a few things that Lya had changed but all in all it was his own work. With a single thought he wiped all evidence of his own work from the database.

"How does it feel?" Mokar asked.

"It feels better than any other body I have ever used, it feels much stronger and more agile than any Asgard body has been," Thor answered. "We do not wish to appear ungrateful but we wish to continue to use the laboratories to restore our people, however only two of us will remain here. The rest of us will be leaving first for the Milky Way and then Othala, I have saved a few ships for this day and we need to reclaim them. There is a planet called Husnar in Othala that is on no star chart where we will rebuild after that."

"It sounds like you have this planed out Thor, I am impressed," Mokar said. He thought for a few moments before he spoke again. "How many ships do you have?" He began to walk down the corridor and Thor followed next to him.

"Twenty two older ships and one new," Thor answered with a puzzled look.

"Then I will give you something." He stepped into a transporter booth and transported them down into the very bowels of the city.

"It is fine, the Alterra have already given the Asgard life, there is no greater gift you could have given us. I know that you are already struggling with resources and I do not wish us to be another drain."

As they stepped out of the transporter booth they could see close to sixty guards patrolling the corridor outside with an additional ten aiming their weapons into the booth. As soon as they saw Mokar and Thor they lowered their weapons and returned to their patrol route.

"What do you store here? Should the city not be have enough safeguards to keep intruders out?" Thor asked.

"I would have hoped so but I keep some of the Alterra's most well guarded secrets and powerful objects down here and I do not wish anyone who do not belong here to be here," Mokar explained. He walked past a few doors down the left corridor before stopping outside a door. "What you are about to see inside is not something I wish for you to tell anyone about."

"I give you my word that I will not tell anyone," Thor said. The door opened in front of him and he could see row after row filled with racks of ZPMs.

"This collection of ZPMs outnumber all ZPMs used during the height of our former empire. One of our newest ships has a power generator that produces almost unlimited power, we can create as many of these as we need," Mokar said. They walked into the room and the door sealed behind them. Mokar focused on a pile of crates standing along one of the walls and mentally moved several of them in front of the racks. The lids opened and he began to mentally pluck ZPMs from the racks and into the form cut foam in the crates. "Do you think you will need more than twenty five?"

Thor was walking between the racks of ZPMs, gently caressing them, with an open mouth. He had seen many things but this was for sure the greatest collection of treasure he had ever seen. Even to the Asgard the ZPMs were objects of power. It took him a few moments to understand what Mokar had asked. "Even one would help, I can not accept more."

"But you will accept these Thor, at the moment you need these more than we do." Mokar kept packing the five crates, each with five ZPMs, and when he was done they floated up and out the door.

"Are you sure about this? These could all be used on your own ships."

Mokar led him back out of the room into the corridor. There was no sign of the floating crates in the corridor. "All of our larger ships have ZPMs on board at this time, the smaller ones would not gain any major benefits from having such a power source installed."

Thor nodded thoughtfully as Mokar led him back into the transporter booth. "If you are sure then I will accept this, but be sure that you understand the debt between us. If the Alterra ever needs help I demand that you inform us."

"I will be sure to let you know Thor," Mokar said. The moment the transporter booth took them out of the restricted zone he had them beamed to the gate room were the crates were waiting. "When you feel that you have established a decent base I wish for you to inform me and I will have the science station moved to the planet, we will loan it to you for as long as you need it."

"This only increases the debt we are in," Thor said and shook his head.

"If you wish to think of debt this way Thor then think of all the duties you have performed over the years that were ours, if anything we have a debt to repay you."

"The Alterra were unable to perform their duties because of reasons that they could not control, our duties had already been to help the Alterra, it was simply natural that we took over where we could."

"Just as things are for the Asgard at the moment, I believe that the Alterra once promised to see to the well being of the Asgard if they could not see to it themselves, that is what we are doing now."

The two kept arguing for some time until Loki and the other Asgard beamed into the room. "Are we interrupting something?" Loki asked.

"We only waited for you to arrive," Thor said.

Mokar walked up to one of the crates and grabbed the handle. "On each side of the handle there is a button, press it once to make it float in the air, press it again to put it down."

"What is this?" Loki asked and attempted to open one of the crates.

"Something to help you, Thor will tell you more once you have recovered your ships," Mokar said. He gently placed his hand on top of the lid to keep it closed.

"Then we open them there," Loki said.

"So where do you wish to go?" Mokar asked.

"Any world where the Omeyoca can be reached, they are holding our ships until we can return. They have their own transportation network so any world will do," Thor said.

"There is one world where I we know the Omeyoca can be reached, SG-1 made contact with them, many years ago, but it is the most recent location we have," Mokar said.

"Then that will be a good location."

Mokar nodded and smiled as he touched the gate and dialed it. The gate activated and the event horizon shimmered slightly.

"It has been a long time since I used a gate to travel," Loki said while Thor walked through with one of the crates.

"We have not used the gates since we moved to Pegasus, the network is far too insecure," Ydar said. He had grabbed one of the crates and walked up to the event horizon.

"I will make sure the Asgard know how to modify the gates as needed," Mokar said.

"That will not be needed," Ydar said loudly. "We shall take this war to the wraith and restore peace, the gate network needs to be open to everyone." With those words he stepped through the gate and the other two Vanir followed him.

"It will be fine Loki, there are no enemies on the other side of the gate," Hermoid assured and helped Loki through the gate with the last of the crates. The gate closed quickly behind them.


	15. Chapter 15 Omeyoca

**A/N:** My apologies for missing last Sunday's posting due to sickness. Instead you get it now at this strange time.

 **A/N 2:** We are also starting to reach the end of this book, Ch 18 will be the last for a while.

When Thor arrived through the stargate he was not surprised to see that it was the very same planet where he had left the ships, it was one of only a handful where the Omeyoca still lived. In front of him he could see the large golden pyramid looming.

"How did you come up with this idea?" Loki asked while they walked up the long stone walkway to the entrance.

"I was on the council for many years before the suicide was voted forward as a viable solution, I have always voted against it but I never thought about going against them until I first made contact with General O'Neill and his team. They showed me that sometimes you should do what you think is right not what others tell you is right," Thor replied.

"So you thought that giving our ships to the Omeyoca was the right thing to do?"

"No I did not think it was the right thing to do, but something they also showed me is that you can make unlikely allies when you need to, they have made allies with Goa'ulds at times, even replicators. While we have never truly been allied with the Omeyocan we have always been friendly with them as best we can," Thor answered.

"Getting them to agree to storage our ships... Your ships. I have never known them to help the Asgard out of kindness."

"They are a slow moving race but they value knowledge so I allowed them to study the Bilskirnir vessels while they were in their care. I told them that they would likely have thousands of years to do so before I came to reclaim our ships, but it seems today is the day we will retrieve them."

"I hope they will not try to stop us, they could feel that we are taking them back to soon," Hermoid said.

"The O'Neill is out of phase so they can not access it and unless I send a command to it it will send out a very powerful neutrino particle burst the next time it losses me from its sensors, it should bring everything brought from this dimension back here. We will be fine, you know that the Omeyoca will not fight us. We may be weak at the moment but they also know that we are far more advanced than they are, I do not think they wish to fight us."

They passed through the entrance to the pyramid and saw the very thin and very long bridge leading up to the platform with the crystal skull. Thor took a few hesitant steps onto the bridge, he knew that there was a gravitational field that would catch any living matter a few meters below the bridge and return them to the entrance but he also knew the Omeyoca liked to scare the Asgard and push them of the cliffs and bridges. He got a few meters onto the bridge before a strong wind from the side hit him, in his old body he would surely have been thrown down from the bridge but now he was much sturdier and braced against the wind. When it subsided he kept walking forward with determined steps. The wind kept pushing against him several more times but he endured it until he reached the platform. One by one his comrades walked cautiously over the bridge. Hermoid was bringing up the rear without a crate and when he took a step onto the bridge his foot passed through it and he fell face forward into the dark void bellow. Hermoid had dealt with the Omeyoca many times and only let out a loud and annoyed groan as he hit the gravity field bellow and was pushed upwards again. Gently the field raised Heimdall onto the central platform and set him down.

"Are you alright?" Thor asked. It was a meaningless gesture since he knew the Omeyoca would not do anything to injure them.

"Yes I am alright. It seems the Omeyoca have not forgotten my involvement in the incident," Heimdall said. He brushed some dust from his clothes and strode up to the podium with the skull. Heimdall had been the commander of the Asgard fleet that had accidentaly attacked the Omeyoca fleet and the Omeyoca were well aware of who he was, it had been his last military posting before turning to science.

Heimdall and Thor placed their hands on the crystal skull at the same time and it flashed with a yellow light before giving of a burst of neutrino particles. The Omeyoca knew that there was no point in the teater with the Asgard. A few seconds later the Omeyoca began to rise up from the depths of the pyramid to face them.

 _"Whyyyyy haaaaveeee yyyoouu cooommmmeee heeereee soooooo sooooon Thoooor,"_ one of the gas like creatures said in their strange language. _"Theeee tiiimeee yyoooouuuu spoooookeeee oooof iiiiis stiiiiiil faaaaar aaaaawaaaayy."_

 _"The time is now Quetzalcoatl,"_ Thor said in their language. He had a hard time keeping the Omeyoca apart and hoped he had gotten the name right and not butchered the language too much.

 _"Yyooouuuu saaaiiiid weeee wooouuuld haaaveee tiiiimeeeee toooo leeeeaaarn frooooom yoooouuuur shiiiiips."_

"I said that you could study our ships while you held them, now that time is up," Thor said.

 _"Weeee haaaaveeee nooooot haaaaad theeee tiiiimeee weee neeedeeed."_

 _"Then I will give you the knowledge you seek. Would you have shields, power generators, hyperdrives or hull plating?"_

 _"Weeeee wiiiiiiish toooo haaaaveeee iiiiiit aaaaaaall."_

 _"I will give you everything, but it will not be our most advanced."_

 _"Weeeee wiiiiiiil taaaaakeeeee iiiiit."_

 _"Return our ships to our dimension and I will send a data canister to you,"_

 _"Soooooo iiiiiiiit shaaaaall beeee."_ The Omeyocan disappeared down into the abyss and the skull flashed again.

Thor removed one of the Asgard control stones from a pocket and gave a crooked smile as it lit up to indicate a connection to his ship. He pressed the top of the stone and pointed it towards all the the Asgard and the crates, when he raised his thumb they all vanished in a white flash as the O'Neill beamed them to the bridge.

"So this is a new Asgard vessel?" Ydar asked.

"The latest class of warships we built," Heimdall said.

"Heimdall, would you please prepare a data capsule for the Omeyoca, do not give them more than you see fit," Thor ordered. "Loki can you locate a nearby world without a stargate where we may conduct the necesary repairs?"

"I will see to it," Heimdall said and walked over to one of the consoles on the spacious bridge. Meanwhile Loki walked over to another console and began his work.

"Is there something we can do?" Ydar asked.

"We shall go to one of the Bilskirnir vessels and I will show you the controls so that you may learn to fly them," Thor said. He moved a few stones on a nearby console and a white flash engulfed them.

It took an hour before Thor returned alone.

"How did it go?" Loki asked.

"I have shown them what they need to know to tow two Bilskirnir ships with them in hyperspace for a short period of time, with them we should be able to limit the number of trips we need to make," Thor said.

"Heimdall have sent the Omeyoca the data they wished for and I have located a suitable planet," Loki said. "It is only a few seconds away through hyperspace, if we tow ships it may take a minute or so, but it will not take us long."

"Good, I believe this ship can tow eight ships and still keep pace with the Bilskirnir."

"Then we can return with one Bilskirnir and take the rest in a single trip," Heimdall said.

"I will beam you to two ships so that we may leave," Thor said.

He moved the stones around one of the consoles and beamed away the two before stepping over to the command chair and sitting down. Unlike the Alterran chairs the Asgard command chair only had a basic mental interface and relied heavily on input from the physical control stones sitting on the arm rests. Once in the chair it floated over to a large screen and he began to lock onto the closest ships with the tractor beams to tow them away from the planet and to keep them in place during the jump.

He waited for the other ships to activate their tractor beams before he increased power to the sublight drive and took them out of the atmosphere, the Bilskirnir were falling behind already but Thor had already given them the coordinates and saw no reason to wait for them so he simply pushed one of the stones forward and sent the ship to hyperspace. When he arrived at the destination he found a grey rock world with the beginnings of an ecosystem on the surface but what surprised him was the small orbital dock orbiting the planet. He checked the planetary database several times but there was no mention of the planet or the coordinates anywhere he could find. A few seconds later the rest of the Bilskirnir ships arrived.

It only took a few moments before Loki opened a channel to Thor's ship. "I will send you the access codes for the dock so that you may begin repairs while we bring the rest of the ships."

"Very well, I take it you acquired this facility the same way I got these ships?" Thor asked.

"No, I gathered the materials needed for this myself over many years, it was finished three years before our suicide and I have not yet had a chance to test it since we had other things to deal with at the time."

"All is fine Loki, it is good that you had this. It will decrease work time considerably to not have to construct another dock in orbit," Thor said with a smile.

"We will return momentarily." Loki cut the channel and Thor saw a notice on his tactical display as one of the ships jumped away.

It took Thor a few seconds to authenticate with the space dock and initialize the systems but then he sent the first Bilskirnir to it, the space dock would automatically begin repairs. Thor moved out of the chair and walked up to one of the crates, he opened the cover and brought out one of the ZPMs. Then he beamed over to the control room of the space dock, it was small and barely fit two or three old Asgard, now it would be tight for even two of the new bodies to fit at the same time, it was after all meant to be automated. He strode up to the single console in the room and activated it, as he suspected the system was low on most resources and the internal generators would take a long time to generate the necessary energy to substitute the material. To solve the issue he had brought the ZPM, it would be greatly taxed to repair the ships but they needed the ships in working order. He downloaded a stored pattern from the O'Neill and synthesized it in front of him, a ZPM socket. With his new agile body it was easy to manually interface the ZPM socket with the power grid of the dock and install the ZPM. Thor felt young again when he did the manual work, for milenia the Asgard had used machines to do their work and it felt good to be able to do something himself.

As soon as the ZPM had been installed the readings on the screen increased and the estimated completion time changed from a few years to only a handful of days. He would need to return to change the ZPM a few times but for now Thor beamed away.


	16. Chapter 16 Yaozu

**A/N:** Another chapter done. Please remember that this story is kept alive by reviews. This means; no reviews = no book 6, 7 or 8.

 **A/N 2:** Being late this week was due to FF having some issues.

Enjoy.

A little over a week had passed since their departure from Destiny and Sergeant Greer was bored out of his mind sitting in one of the chairs reading the same book for the fourth time. He had underestimated the limited space and entertainment of the shuttle hurling through hyperspace.

Suddenly one of the consoles next to him came to life and began to count down, but his focus was on the book and it took several minutes before he saw it. When he finally saw it he took a few seconds to read the message; Return to normal space imminent: 05:04, he was happy that Rodney had made sure to translate the interface to almost all known languages. When his excitement had settled he closed the book and hurled it across the shuttle to one of the drop-down beds where Lieutenant Scott was sleeping.

"What the hell do you think you're doing Sergeant? You're watch shift just started and it's my turn to sleep" Scott yelled from the bed and hurled the book back.

"We're on final approach Lieutenant. Since you're the pilot I thought you should pilot us to safety when we leave hyperspace," Greer yelled back.

In an instant Scott flew out of the bed. "You're damn right Sergeant. Let's get this over with." He climbed into the pilot's chair and prepared them for leaving hyperspace. "All systems are looking good. Shield is online, subspace and radio relays are working. Be ready to activate weapons in case we need them."

"Standing ready with weapons."

A few minutes passed before they dropped out of hyperspace in high orbit above a green world.

"Looks like there's a few settlements on the planet," Greer said. He was looking at the sensor readings.

"Good, let's hope they can hear us." Scott flipped a switch and activated the communications system. "This is Lieutenant Scott of the crew of Destiny calling anyone on the planet, please respond."

There were several minutes of quiet before someone responded. -This is Yaozu of the people of Novus. I am happy to hear from you again, we did not think you would turn Destiny around and come back to us.-

"Destiny's still on her way, we've taken a smaller ship here. Can we land on the surface of the planet? We can explain things once we've landed."

-There is a large open field on the planet next to the stargate, you may land there.-

"Good, we'll be landing as soon as possible." Scott flipped the same switch again and turned off the communication system.

"Standing down with weapons," Greer reported before shutting down his weapons console.

"Taking us into the atmosphere," Scott said. He angled the shuttle towards the planet and dove down.

"Sensors are registering a stargate fifteen degrees to our right and two degrees down," Greer said.

"Then that's where we're headed." Scott adjusted the course to match and only a few seconds later they could see the gate through the window. They slowed down and landed right next to the gate. "Sergeant, could you go outside and release the packages?"

"I'm on it." Greer got out of the chair and opened the rear hatch. He took a few deep breaths before he jumped down on the surface. Because they had a cargo of two pegasus style gates strapped to the underside of the shuttle the floor of the shuttle was sitting quite a bit higher than normal.

Once outside the shuttle Greer walked around and deactivated the four magnetical straps that had been holding the gates in place. "That's it Lieutenant."

"Good work." With the gates released Scott let the shuttle glide up a few centimeters and away from them before setting down again.

"So what now Lieutenant? We wait?" Greer asked through the still open hatch.

"We can begin to prepare one of the gates." He walked over to the small stack of crates and began to pull the largest towards the hatch, a second later Greer was there and they carried it out together. Outside they opened it and pulled out the four thick metal cables lying inside. They took two of the cables and attached them to the gate lying on top. They connected the other two cables to the shuttle.

"Can't we get this over with Lieutenant? They're not going to say no to us."

"We can use their help Sergeant. A few hands on the surface won't hurt."

"If you say so," Greer said and sat down against the rear of the shuttle.

Half an hour later a large group of people approached them from the distant forest line.

"Looks like we have company Sergeant."

"I see them." They each took up their binoculars and inspected the approaching group, it was at least a dozen men and women of varying ages but they all looked to be unarmed.

A few minutes later the group arrived and all looked puzzled at the two gates.

"May I ask why you've returned here? And why you have brought these strange stargates here?" Yaozu asked.

"When we left you last time we could not help you, but we now have a way of traveling back and forth between Destiny and our home. So here we are, ready to help you return your lost people," Scott said.

"You mean that you will rescue those who are traveling on the arks?"

"Yes, with your permission of course."

"You are the ancestors, if you will help us we will gladly accept."

"Good. First thing first, we need to reestablish contact with Destiny so they can send the rest of the gear we need to locate your ships. To do that we need to install a new gate on this planet."

Yaozu turned to one of his men. "Carl, return to the settlement and bring us shovels and men to dig a trench for the gate," Yaozu ordered.

"That won't be needed," Scott said. "We will replace the gate already here." He walked up to the podium and swiped his hand over the side, in response a panel swung open to reveal a lever. He took a firm grip of the lever and pulled it to the side, as soon as he let go of the lever the entire podium began to move. Slowly the podium split into two parts with the gate standing firm in the center held by two clamps.

"Will we still be able to dial other planets with the old type of gates?" Yaozu said.

"Yes, the only reason we need to change gates is because the old type can not handle the amount of energy we need to use," Scott said. "You will still be able to interface with the gate in the same way as you did before, apparently because it is the podium that handles the dialing."

"Then tell us what to do."

"We'll take our ship and hook it up to the gate with the cables, when I've tightened the cables you need to pull the lever up to release the gate. After that we're going down to set it down and disconnect the cables from the shuttle, then connect the other set of cables and move the new gate into place. When it's in place you pull the lever down and back into position to lock it back in place."

"We can do that."

"Good. Let's go Sergeant," Scott said. He looked towards the shuttle to see that Greer had already gotten into the harness he would be hanging in from below the shuttle.

"I'm good to go Lieutenant," Greer said.

Scott got into the shuttle and piloted it upwards, relying on Greer to guide him from below. Ever so slowly they changed the two gates and an hour later Scott parked the shuttle.

"Now what?" Yaozu asked.

"Now we dial Destiny and wait for them to send our equipment," Scott said. He pulled up an Asgard stone and placed it on the gate, he pressed the stone with two fingers and the gate activated for a few moments.

"Did it not work?"

"We only let them know that the gate is online, it will most likely take a few minutes before they reply."

"And what will happen then?"

"They will be sending us two satellites and two dialing devices to handle the new network addresses. We will leave one dialing device here, the rest goes onto the shuttle. Apparently the gates need to triangulate their position inside the galaxy to be able to dial, since there's only one gate of this type in the galaxy the satellites will be used as reference points for the gate we're taking to the ships. The satellites also have very powerful sensors to help us locate you ships."

"And how does this gate function if there are no gates to triangulate from?" Yaozu asked.

"I've got no bloody clue, that's something you need to ask Eli or Doctor Rush," Scott answered.

"We're just soldiers, we know what the eggheads tells us but beyond that you need to talk to them," Greer said.

"I understand."

Together they waited a few minutes until the gate activated again. This time a handful of combat engineers came through with two DHDs and two cylinders with antennas sticking out, lastly Eli came through.

"Take care of the DHD here," Eli ordered two of the engineers.

"It's good to see you Eli," Greer said.

"It's good to see you too, how was it living in the shuttle that long?" Eli asked.

"I think we've both had worse but I'd rather not do it again," Scott answered.

"We'll leave the shuttle here for them to study," Eli said. "Colonel Young think it's more trouble than it's worth to have someone fly it back."

"I agree with the Colonel there," Greer said.

"Have you had time to take a shower yet?" Eli asked after having sniffed the air.

"No Eli, we've been stuck in the shuttle for the last week and we arrived here an hour or two ago," Scott said.

"We have running water in most of our settlements here, you are free to use our baths here," Yaozu offered.

"It'll take us some time to deploy the satellites and I have people who can fly the shuttle good enough to deploy them," Eli said.

"Then we'd be more than happy to try your baths," Scott said.

"Come, I can not guarantee a relaxing experience in the baths as I fear excitement will take many of our youngest," Yaozu said. "But I agree with ancestor Eli, a shower would not hurt you."

"As long as it is running water it's perfect," Scott said and motioned for Yaozu to lead the way.

"Come." Yaozu lead them away from the gate and the shuttle and towards the smoke rising in the distance.

With Scott and Greer out of his way Eli began to order the engineers around him to get the satellites into deep space.

When Scott, Greer and Yaozu returned two hours later Eli and two of the combat engineers were sitting in the grass next to the gates.

"How's it going Eli?" Scott asked.

"The shuttle just dropped of the last satellite and will be back here in half an hour or so," Eli answered. He had a computer sitting in his lap that he was working on.

"Then you know where the arks are?"

"If you give me a few minutes we should be able to locate them," Eli said.

"Very well."

Eli activated a holographic projector that showed a line of star systems. He pointed towards the system sitting at one end of the line. "That's where we are now, the other end is Novus. The ships should be somewhere near the Novus end." A red ellipse appeared a short distance from Novus. "That's where we think they should be given the specs of the ships."

"It is still a long way here," Yaozu said.

"Roughly eighty light years, that would be something like thirty six minutes for the earlies hyperspace capable ships that earth built," Eli said.

"Thirty six minutes? To go that fast must be amazing."

"Well that was some time ago, we're going to go roughly five times as fast, so it'll take us around seven minutes depending on how far away you ships are."

"Yet it took ten days on Destiny?"

"Well Destiny is using another type of propulsion so we need to navigate around stars, planets, meteor swarms, nebulas and the likes. If you look at the hologram you will see a purple cloud, that's a nebula that we had to travel around to get here last time. This time we're flying through it."

"It is incredible to think that such technology exists."

"Well it does and you're about to experience it."

"You wish me to come?"

"Of course, we think it's better if you're there. Might give use a better chance of being allowed onto the ships," Scott said.

"It would be an honor, if you would have me I would gladly come with you."

"Good, cause that's what we want."

On the hologram several large green blobs appeared that slowly shrunk. A minute passed before Eli highlighted a large green blob inside the red ellipse.

"The green objects are items moving faster than point one times the speed of light," Eli said. "The one I picked out is by far the largest but it seems to have empty space mixed in, so that's probably the arks."

"The technology you have is truly amazing," Yaozu said.

"You should see what they have back in Atlantis," Eli said.

"All in due time Eli, let's focus on getting these people home," Scott said.

Another half an hour passed by with some light conversations until the shuttle came flying down towards them.

"Eli, make sure they land the shuttle on the second gate so we won't have to move it," Scott ordered.

"Right away," Eli replied.

The moment the shuttle sat down on top of the gate both Scott and Greer were there and began to attach the magnetic straps back onto the shuttle, since it was one gate less they had to tighten up the straps a lot before it was secured to the shuttle.

"Everyone who's coming with us get onboard," Scott ordered.

"Are you sure you wish to go alone?" one of the Novus men asked.

"Yes, it is a short journey but their ship is also small," Yaozu answered. "If things go as they hope I will return in a matter of hours. If things do not go as we hope then you will all be caught in it, there is nothing to gain by risking you all." He gave his people a smile before he stepped into the shuttle and Eli closed the hatch behind them.

"Everything is in the green, taking off," Scott replied before piloting the shuttle up into the air. "Eli, I need a course or at least a heading."

"I'm uploading it straight to your console right now," Eli said. "It looks like they're almost falling behind our expectations."

"Got it," Scott said. "If they're falling short that could indicate some sort of malfunction or problem."

"I know exactly what that means," Eli answered.

"And I mean that we'll be going to hyperspace as soon as possible."

"If you want we can do it from here, our displacement is small enough that we're not going to ruin the atmosphere if we do."

"Are you sure Eli?"

"Just punch it." The moment Eli finished the sentence the blue hue of hyperspace washed over them. "A ship creates a void in the air if they enter hyperspace inside the atmosphere, with a large ship this would create disaster on the planet in question unless the ship was designed to do so. But given how small we are and how high up we just were it's fine."

"Is there any way to know what has happened to the ships?" Yaozu asked.

"No, not at this range," Eli said. "While we have an impressive powersource on board our sensors are still very limited and the satellites are only meant to detect movement, they don't give much data beyond that."

"It's only a few minutes until we're there, then we can get a better picture of what we're up against," Scott said.

Roughly five minutes later Eli interrupted the silence. "Do you know how many arks they built?"

Yaozu thought for a few moments, "From what I learned in the archives there may be as many as thirty ships, but I do not know how many made it of the planet."

"We need to drop out of hyperspace, like right now," Eli yelled.

"Dropping out," Scott answered and the blue hue gave way to the darkness of deep space. Then Scott spun around in his chair to look at Eli. "What's going on?"

"If I'm reading this right we have close to forty ships in that cluster and there's at least two distinct sizes. I think we may be too late."


	17. Chapter 17 The Arks

**A/N:** So here it is, the second to last chapter of this book. As some of you already know I am writing the **three **following books in parallell to better match up the story lines of Atlantis, Destiny, Earth and the Asgard. This means the story of Atlantis and the Jaffa will be one book (most likely #7), Destiny will have one book (likely #6) and Earth and the Asgard will share one book (likely #8). So why am I telling you all this? Because after this book there will be a much longer pause while I write, and to some degree finish, all three books.

As always, enjoy and leave reviews if something catches your attention, you have a story idea or just something else.

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"If I'm reading this right we have close to forty ships in that cluster and there's at least two distinct sizes. I think we may be too late."

"How could this happen?" Yaozu asked.

"I'm not sure," Eli said. "But if you know where you're coming from and where you're going it's a straight line, they could have simply followed the ships from Novus here."

"We still need to get everyone of those ships, there's no way we're going to leave them out there," Scott said. "We're a small shuttle, maybe we can sneak onto one of the ships and leave the gate with you and the combat engineers while Greer and I distract any hostile ships."

"Oh come on, this is a shuttle and that could be over ten warships."

"We have an Asgard beam Eli and a ZPM to power it and our shields. That's all on a small shuttle, from what we've seen in this part of the universe there's few things that can stand against that, I think we can manage."

"Let's do this," Greer said with a smile. He powered up the weapon console and deployed the Asgard beam.

"Check your weapons and personal shields," Scott ordered. A second later he activated the hyperdrive and sent them on their way for the last leg of the journey.

"Uhm, I didn't bring a weapon," Eli said.

"Take mine," Scott said and threw Eli his Alterran pistol. He threw a glance over his shoulder at Eli. "You brought your shield at least?"

"Of course, Colonel Young refused to let me go off-world without it."

"Now you know why we should keep them on us at all times, when we get back to Destiny the first thing we're going to do is get you a weapon of your own."

"How do you fire this thing?" Eli asked.

"Think about stunning or killing and it will fire the correct bolt," Greer answered.

"Just don't do it inside the shuttle," Scott said.

"I'm not an idiot."

"But you're no soldier Eli," Greer reminded just as they left hyperspace and returned to normal space.

Just a few hundred meters in front of them the sensors detected several Nakai motherships facing their way and well over a hundred fighters spread out amongst them. Behind the screen of Nakai ships they could gleam the Novus arks and beyond those even more Nakai ships.

"Guys, they're powering weapons and shields," Eli said.

"There goes Plan A. Light them up," Scott said. He put the shuttle in a tight spin to the right to get out of the direct line of fire. As soon as they leveled out Greer fired and the Asgard beam cut through several fighters before slamming into the side of a mothership. The Nakai ship's shield flashed under the strain of the beam but held firm. A second beam struck the ship a few seconds later and this time it just barely got through the shield, what little energy got through the shield cut a hole through several decks. As all that happened the shuttle was keeping well out of reach of the Nakai fighters and nowhere near the firing arcs of the motherships.

"We're going to swing around for another pass," Scott said. He turned tight enough that the inertial dampeners complained audibly.

One of the combat engineers had sat down at another console and taken control over the two anti fighter guns, the moment he saw the Naki fighters in his sight he began to fire. Even if they were far outside the effective range of the weapons there were enough Naki fighters to spray and still hit something. The Naki fighters tried to fire back but Scott made sure the plasma bolts only graced the shuttle's shield.

As they passed through the fighter screen and came in for their second pass the damaged Naki ship had moved into their path. An Asgard beam reached out towards the ship and sliced through the rear section just as it jumped away to hyperspace. When the ship jumped away it revealed a second mothership that fired its main weapon, right on que. The yellow plasma pulse hit the small shuttle like a sledgehammer to the face but their shields held.

"Shield's down to ninety three percent, let's not do that again," Eli said.

"That's good Eli, means we're hitting harder," Scott said.

Greer fired the Asgard beams two times in quick succession into the Nakai ship that had fired and they cut a swat across the entire top of the ship, a few seconds later all Nakai ships jumped away one by one while their fighters scrambled to get away.

"Good work everyone," Scott said. "Eli, find me an entrance point to the arks."

Before Eli had a chance to say anything the radio transmitter picked up a transmission. -This is Captain Alura of Ark Five speaking. I'm not sure who you are but I'm glad you're here. We don't have much but if there's something we can offer you it is yours.-

Eli walked up to Scott and whispered to him. "The bridge section of one ark is badly damage, I think we can get the shuttle inside and use the shield to seal the breach."

"Good work," Scott whispered back before he answered the hail. "This is Lieutenant Scott, we've brought someone who wants to speak to you." He motioned for Yaozu to come up to him.

-As long as it does not take to long. We have borders that I'd like to deal with.-

"Hello Captain Alura, my name is Yaozu. I do not know how to say this in a good and quick way, but we are here to bring you home. We came from the colony you are going to and we have a stargate with us."

-I'd be happy for any assistance you can give but I know a stargate's too large to fit through any opening in our ships.-

"We've located a hull breach on one of your ships," Scott said. "We think we can land our shuttle and seal the breach for you, at least temporarily. If you can dock your ships together we can get everyone to the colony."

-I'll send out the order. I know which ark you mean, the aliens shot at them when they refused to let the aliens board. If you can pull this off we'll be forever in your debt.-

"You can wait to thank us until we've managed to get you all off the ship," Scott said. With a swift maneuver he sent the shuttle towards the damaged ark and the gaping hole in the top of the ship. All around them they could see the arks ever so slowly moving towards the damaged ship from all directions.

"Can we fit into that hole?" Yaozu asked.

"No, we're going to have to use the shuttle as a battering ram," Scott said. He saw the hole approaching and he knew just how much larger he would make it. He let his hand float over the shield control, making sure he was ready to expand the shield to cover the breach when they broke through. "Alright Yaozu, you're staying with me in the shuttle. Everyone else goes outside as soon as we touch down. Eli, I want you to set up that gate as soon as you can. Dial Destiny and tell Colonel Young to send every soldier we have here, these are some huge ships and a lot of people to protect."

"I already have the location loaded into the DHD but getting the gate to sit straight is going to be a challenge," Eli responded.

"Lean it against a wall and tell everyone to take big steps, we don't need to make things fancy. It just needs to work."

"Easy for you to say," Eli said.

Moments later they smashed into the ark and the shuttle forced its way into what once would have been the bridge and several surrounding rooms. As soon as they were inside the hull Scott expanded the shield to cover the hole in the hull. Scott smashed through a few half ruined floors and walls to turn the shuttle around inside.

"Let's get a move on people," Greer shouted when the shuttle stopped. He ran up to the rear hatch and opened it, letting out a large amount of air into the shielded area. He jumped out onto the deck plating but began to drift away as the artificial gravity did not function in that section of the ship. When Eli and the combat engineers followed him they were a bit more careful and hung onto the outside of the shuttle.

"This certainly makes things easier," Eli said. He climbed in under the shuttle. "Can someone check the structural integrity of the walls, I think I have an idea. The rest of you help me with the gate, if we can find a wall that can support the gate we can use the magnetic straps to lock it in place and dial it through the wall."

"I'll find you a wall," one of the engineers said and pushed away from the shuttle. He took out an Alterran scanner and began to analyse the walls. When he reached a wall he activated the magnetic soles of his boots and began to walk along the walls.

One by one they removed the straps and detached the gate from the shuttle.

"This wall is stable enough to hold the gate as long as we keep the gravity below a quarter of Earth's," the engineer reported from one of the walls sitting alone in the middle of the room.

"Good, let's get the gate over there," Eli said. He threw one of the magnetic straps towards the wall and watched it lock onto the wall. The engineers followed his example and with the straps locked onto the wall they began to pull the gate with them towards the wall. It took them a few minutes to get the gate in place and strapped to the wall. Meanwhile the rest of the combat engineers were forcing the DHD into place next to the gate and were fastening it with long screws through the deck.

"How's it going?" Greer asked. He had finally reached a wall and managed to activate his magnetic soles.

"I think it should work, the DHD is calibrated and we just need to dial out, but if we're going to reach Destiny I need more power," Eli said.

"Can we use this?" Greer asked. He pulled out an Asgard stone like the one Scott had used to contact Destiny and threw it over to Eli.

"That will work," Eli said. He pushed it onto the gate and activated the stone, the gate began to dial and the vortex ate through the wall before it shut down.

This time it only took a few seconds before the gate began to dial back.

-What's happening? Where are you and what do you need?- Colonel Young's distinct voice asked.

"We've located the arks Sir, but the Nakai have managed to board the ships," Scott answered just as Eli came into the shuttle.

Eli sat down with his laptop and connected to the systems in the base on the other side of the gate. "I'm sending work orders to the factory," Eli said. "I need that brought here straight away so we can secure the gate."

-I'll contact Atlantis and see what forces they can send. Until then I'll send what troops we have here to you, along with what you've requested Eli.-

"Thank you Sir," Scott said.

-What about the Nakai? Do they have any ships in the area?-

"We managed to chase them away, the shuttle's weapons managed to cut through their shields after two shots and their weapons proved to be ineffective against our shields."

"That's all thanks to the ZPM, we'd be toast without it," Eli reminded.

-How many ships did they have?-

"Hard to say Sir, we only saw a portion of their fleet before they jumped away. They're most likely coming back," Scott said.

-I know there's a lot of people on these ships Lieutenant, save as many as you can, but don't take any risks.

"Yes Sir."

A few minutes later the first soldier stumbled through the gate with a crate in his hands, several more followed with more crates a few seconds later and Eli was there to greet them. He got started as soon as he could, placing the different machines and the two Naquadah generators, it took him a few minutes to set up the equipment but when he was done he flipped a switch and artificial gravity kicked in. He flipped another switch and sealed the hole in the ship with a strong shield.

"We have gravity and a stable atmosphere," Eli shouted.

"I take it that means we don't need the shuttle here right now?" Scott said.

"No we have a separate shield holding the air inside."

"Greer get back in here," Scott shouted. "We're going to patrol the area. Yaozu, help Eli get your people through the gate."

"I will," Yaozu answered and hurried out of the shuttle. He got a few meters before Greer ran by him into the shuttle, a moment later the shuttle rose up and left.

It took a few seconds before they could all hear the groaning of metal as someone tried to force the doors to the bridge open.

"Get those doors open," Eli ordered. The combat engineers next to him nodded and hurried over to the doors.

As soon as the doors began to open blue plasma bolts began to fire through the door and large group of Nakai tried to force their way inside. But the soldiers inside held their ground and pushed the Nakai back. Their shields' flashed as the bolts hit them but they could not have cared less, they could all feel the pathetical strain it was putting on their shields. A few more soldiers arrived through the gate before it shut off.

Lieutenant Vanessa James broke free from the group and stepped up to Eli. "The briefing that the Colonel gave was a bit thin to say the least. What's our status? How many Nakai are on this ship and how many humans are on board?"

"If have no idea, if you give me a few minutes I might be able to connect to the shuttle's sensors and do some sort of scan. But that's going to take a while and we're talking about several large ships, it's going to be hard to give any accurate numbers."

"Come on Eli, you're a genius, figure something- Wait several ships?"

"Yes, I never counted them but we're estimating between fifteen and twenty ships. They're evacuating their entire civilisation. It's bound to be a lot of people on these ships."

"For fucks sake Eli, this is more than we can handle with what we have," James yelled. She spun around and headed towards the door. "Barnes, you and your men stay here with Eli and the Combat Engineers. Keep our fallback point safe. Rest of you come with me."

James and most of the soldiers rushed through the doors and into the heart of the ship while Barnes and twelve soldiers stayed behind.

"Do we know if there's any secondary entrances into this room?" Barnes asked straight away.

"To be honest we've been here like ten minutes," Eli said and saw her look. "So no, we don't know if there's any other entrances."

She walked up to him and was right up in his face, but her tone was surprisingly soft. "Then can you please take five engineers and check, if you find any I want you to seal them permanently."

"We can do that," Eli replied.

"Good." She spun around on the spot and stared at her men. "Unless Eli gives you another task you belong to me now and we're going to create a chokepoint here. I want barricades on both sides of the door so we can fire down the entire length of the corridor, I also want a meter wide gap between the walls and the barricade so our people can get out of the way quickly."

"Yes Ma'am," the soldiers said in unison. They immediately spread out and began to search for debris to use.

Quietly Eli gathered five people and explained their task.

A few minutes later they could hear the sound of footsteps hitting the floor and as Barnes and the soldiers looked down the corridor they could see a stream of people coming their way.

"Eli, get the gate going," Barnes yelled.

"I can only do one thing at a time," Eli yelled back. He came running across the room to the DHD.

"And now you need to get the gate going, after that you can get back to the doors."

"Fine, give me a few seconds." Eli took out a piece of paper from a pocket and began to dial the address on it.

Meanwhile Yaozu had walked over to the makeshift barricade that was being constructed. "Come this way, the gate will take you to safety," he yelled.

A man broke free from the stream of people that were coming into the room and strode up to Barnes. "We're grateful for your assistance, I'm acting Captain of this ark. What can we do to help you?"

"Get your people here as quickly as possible, I think that's all you can do at this point, unless you can give me some information about the number of people here and the number of Nakai."

"It's hard to say Ma'am, when we left long ago there were almost a million people on each ship but there has been both births and deaths in the years. With access to our computers I could access our archives and give you a number, but these Nakai, as you call them, are taking people from us as well."

"Thank you, we will do what we can. Get your people here and we will evacuate them."

"I will." He gave her what must have been their version of a salute before he began to push his way back through the crowd with some men.

Barnes pulled Eli away from the gate and the people rushing through it. "He said one million on each ship and you said they had several ships. What they hell did you think coming here?"

"We're in deep space, the chances of finding this fleet is astronomical unless you know where to search."

"Yea, but they still found this place and you guys tried to defend it yourselves, you should have fallen back. Can we even do this?"

"Hey I was the one who wanted to stay back, Matt and Greer were the ones who wanted to attack."

"I'll skin them alive for this." She kicked a nearby wall. "Can we evacuate these ships?"

"Yes of course, it's a matter of time."

"And how much time do we need?"

"Maybe forty eight hours, it depends on how many we can send through the gate each second and how many we can get to this room. There's too many variables."

"For fucks sake Eli, can you do anything to get us out of here faster?"

"Each time Destiny dials in to send personel I can get more equipment here, I could get use a couple ZPMs to expand the shield around the entire fleet and maybe some transporter arrays to transport people straight to this room but even if we do that we're still limited by the gate."

"And whenever they do that we need to stop sending people."

"Exactly."

"If that's the case I want you to check out the other doors, maybe we can get more people here through those doors."

"A moment ago you asked me to seal those doors," Eli complained.

"Things change Eli, get used to it."

"Fine," Eli muttered and walked away.

They kept sending through people for thirty eight minutes until Eli stepped in front of the gate and held people back from it. A second later it shut down.

"Stand back, we're going to get reinforcement," Eli yelled and pushed people back from the gate. He felt the vortex behind him and turned around to see Bra'tac coming through the gate.

"I was told you may need help with borders," Bra'tac said. While he spoke to Eli an army of Jaffa began to walk through the gate.

"Yes," Eli said. He turned towards the barricade. "Corporal Barnes, we've got backup."

It only took her a few seconds to come up to them but the room was starting to get cramped. "Thank you for coming, you heard right. They are creatures with blue skin and black uniforms."

"Have their entrance points been secured?" Bra'tac asked.

"We've managed to chase away their ships, for the moment at least," Barnes said.

"Good. We will clear the ship of these creatures."

"We just secured a secondary entrance way to this room, it's leading straight into a nest of Nakai," Eli said. He pointed towards a smaller side door.

"That is where we will go first," Bra'tac said. He marched over to the door and his Jaffa followed him through the door.

"Now we just need a few ships and maybe we can pull this of," Barnes said and returned to the barricade.

"Can I get some help with this?" Zelenka asked from the gate when all the Jaffa had left.

"Of course," Eli said. He walked over to Zelenka and helped him get the crates away from the gate. "What's all this?"

"Work Mister Wallace," Zelenka answered. Behind them the gate shut down.

"Crap, I needed to get more equipment here," Eli said while he rushed over to the DHD. He reached it and began to dial the colony again.

"We had an hour to go over our options but I think we can make this work," Zelenka said when Eli returned.

Eli let out a deep sigh. "We do you have?" From the side door they could hear the sound of staff weapons being fired.

Zelenka opened one of the crates. "A hyperdrive, it's small for a ship of this size but we're not going to use it for that. We're going to use an Alterran prototype drive called a wormhole drive. We're going to make the gate send the ships and itself through subspace to a destination."

"Right. Sounds sort of dangerous. Why haven't I heard of this drive before?" Eli asked sceptically.

"It's not safe and it's likely going to blow us all up," Zelenka answered. He picked up a datapad from one the crate and handed it to Eli. "For each jump there's very advanced and difficult calculations that we need to make to arrive at the right location, avoid vaporisation and that kind of thing. They say that you are some sort of mathematical genius, so if you can solve this we can use the hyperdrive and the gate to get these people to their destination."

Eli snatched the datapad and looked at the equations, his mind processed the equations and he knew he could solve it with a few hours time and the right data. "I think I can get this done, I need some data but we can get that from the shuttle."

"Good, I will modify the hyperdrive to suite our needs while you do that." Zelanka opened up all but one of the crates and pulled out all sorts of strange equipment. He put up some sort of workbench against a wall and began to open up the drive.

For close to three hours they worked and every thirty eight minutes they redialed the gate. Without any warning Eli saw the sensor feed coming from the shuttle change, inside of a second twenty nine Nakai ships dropped out of hyperspace around them and began to fire. The ship shook and Eli was thrown of his feet.

"Whatever you are doing you should do it now," Barnes shouted as she came running over to them.

-This is Lieutenant Scott to anyone who can hear me, the Nakai are back with a fleet. I doubt the arks can take any amount of damage, fall back through the gate. We've done what we can. We'll buy you as much time as we can before we need to jump to hyperspace.-

"I'm done and it should work," Zelenka said and sealed the hyperdrive back together. He took the small hyperdrive over to the gate and began to connect it. "But I know those calculations will take a lot of time to go through. Maybe if we had Rodney here we could have it done in an hour or two."

Eli looked up from the datapad. "Hey, I can hear you."

"Of course you can, I'm ten meters away from you," Zelenka shouted back. "I am only saying that I know how hard those calculations are. I have done them once before and I know they are hard. Do not feel bad that we can't save these people."

"And I'm saying they're badly written," Eli snapped back. He got up from the floor, walked over to Zelenka and pushed the datapad into his hands. "You just need to rewrite them to make sense. But we don't have the power to do this, it would take a ZPM to give us the power we need."

Zelenka looked through the calculation, only bits and pieces remained of the original equation but there was no doubt that it gave the same result. "Seems the faith General O'Neill put in you was justified," he said with a smile. He connected the datapad to the hyperdrive before pointing to a cable coming from the one crate that was still unopened. "That crate contains three ZPMs, it should be enough to take us to our destination."

"What did you say about the General?" Eli asked.

"We wanted to finish the calculations in Atlantis before I came here but General O'Neill said you'd finish them quicker than we could," Zelenka explained.

The ship rocketed as another blast hit the ship and they could all feel the air starting to drain from the room.

Before Eli could get up on his feet Barnes was there and helped him up. "We need to go through the gate now Eli," she yelled.

"No, we're taking them all home," Eli said and broke from her grip. He walked over to Zelenka who was lying next to the gate. "What do we need to do?"

"Upload the calculations into the drive," Zelenka groaned. "It should accept them and take us to our destination the moment it receives them."

Eli took the datapad from the floor and tried to start the transfer but it refused, he tried again and again. The ship shook again and everyone in the room were thrown to the floor. Again Barnes was there and helped Eli up, as she did he saw that the other end of the cable was hanging free. He broke he grasp again and took the cable, as he plugged it in the upload started by itself. A moment passed before the gate shut down and immediately began to dial. The hyperdrive also began to light up. A blinding flash enveloped them all.

When the light faded people began to get up from the floor. Through the holes in the hull they could see the planet just outside.

Eli ran over to the shield generator and began to adjust the shield to cover the new holes that had formed in the hull to keep the air inside.

Meanwhile Barnes tapped her com badge. "Lieutenant James please respond. Eli and one of the scientists from Atlantis has managed to move the ships away from the Nakai ships. I think they may have taken us to the Novus colony."

Almost a minute passed before James answered. -Copy that Corporal. I have one of the Captains here, she tells me they can land their ships on the planet if it's really the colony.-

Eli was nodding next to Barnes. "Eli says it is," Barnes replied.

-They'll prepare the ships for reentry.-

It would take several hours, but in the end all the arks gently, more or less, touched down on the surface.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N:** So this is the last chapter for a while. Enjoy.

* * *

"How are things looking?" Daniel asked through his com badge. The sun had just come up and he was sitting in his chair in the highest tower of the Antarctic outpost looking at requisition papers for the new off-world colony they would start today. A few weeks had passed since Daniel's conversation with Camile Wray and they had made the announcement that today they would start recruitment for the new off-world colony. Colonel Sheppard had been working with his men to place as many transport rings across Earth as they could and they had ended up with roughly two thousand platforms across the planet.

-Ehm, I think you better come see this for yourself,- Colonel Sheppard replied.

"Well we knew we would most likely only get a handful or two to start with," Daniel said. He got out of his chair and walked up to the window, he could see quite a lot of people walking around, more than he expected.

-That's not what's happened.-

Daniel returned the papers to his desk and walked over to the door. "I'll come down to see it for myself." He walked down the corridor to the nearby transporter booth and picked a booth close to the new assembly area outside the outpost. It was a short walk to the nearby exit where Sheppard was leading the recruitment with four men. When the door opened Daniel could see the problem, several thousand people, young and old, were waiting in the large field and in the distance he could see their ten ring platforms working overtime as more and more people arrived.

Sheppard heard the door open and looked over his shoulder. "They've been arriving since before daylight came. We've already processed..."

"Seven hundred and nineteen," one of his men filled in from the table as they continued working.

"It seems your offer was rather popular, I just hope you can deliver our end of the deal. Two months of rations for everyone who goes there, that's a lot of meals," Sheppard said.

"We have enough power to synthesize that food in the short term so I am sure it will be fine, my only worry is that they will have a hard time with the colony," Daniel said.

"General O'Neill have already sent two Auroras to the planet to set up a basic infrastructure and they have some thousand Asurans there as well as a handful ZPMs, there's no chance the colony will fail," Sheppard reassured.

"Still, we expected maybe a hundred to start with, we will need to tell them to hurry up and synthesize more tents."

"I've already informed one of Rodney's Lantean underlings picked for the project that they will need more of everything, I am sure they will figure it out," Sheppard said, but Daniel did not hear a single word, instead he stared at one of the younger women standing in front of the table and she stared back. "Daniel?" Sheppard said over and over again. "Get a medical team down here."

"It's fine Colonel, I'm just a bit shocked," Daniel finally replied. He jumped over the table and the young woman rushed forward towards him. Her arms slammed around him in a tight hug that almost knocked him over. It took a few moments before he returned the embrace.

"Is it really you Daniel?" she asked.

"Of course it's me Cassandra," he answered. He could see everyone around them staring, except for Sheppard who only gave him a questioning look. "Come on, let's go for a walk." He led her around the table towards the entrance.

"Is everything as it should?" Sheppard asked when they passed him.

"It's been a long time since anything was this good Colonel, I'll take care of her registration myself." He gave the group of Lanteans and Sheppard one more glance. "I'll get you a few dozen more men."

"I think that would be a good idea," Sheppard said before returning to his duties at the table.

Daniel led Cassandra through the corridors of the base to mess hall which was almost empty at the time, but there were still plenty of food standing ready for breakfast.

"Take anything you want, I just need to see to something," Daniel said.

"Anything?" Cassandra asked hesitantly.

"Anything." Daniel walked over to one of the tables where two Lieutenants were sitting with their food, he recognised them as some of Sheppard's more trusted officers.

When they saw Daniel approaching they stood up and saluted. "Sir."

"There's no need for that," Daniel said and motioned for them to sit back down. "I think you know about the recruitment we're doing today?"

"Yes Sir," both said.

"Well there's probably two or three thousand people waiting in line at the moment." He saw the surprised look they exchanged. "The rings have been active for an hour or so and more people keep arriving, think you can get your men along with some tables and get out there to help them?"

"We'll get right on it Sir," one of them said and they both got up, but Daniel mentally pushed them back down in their chairs.

"Finish your meals first and make sure everyone gets a proper breakfast, it's going to be a long day and I want you all on your best behavior."

"Yes Sir," they both said and began to shovel down their food.

With that done he walked back to Cassandra who was halfway down the serving station with a large tray filled with plates of food. Daniel had already eaten in his quarters so he only picked up some fruit and sat down at a table to wait for her. When she finally came she was balancing one tray in each hand.

"Are you going to eat all that?" Daniel asked sceptically. They were using several alien plants that were very filling and he knew a group of marines would find it hard to share what she had on her trays.

"Food's spares on the outside so I haven't had a proper meal in months," she answered and began stuffing herself with the food.

"Fine. So tell me what happened to you? Sam had almost a hundred people searching for you for well over a year."

"One of my mom's friends escaped the SGC and warned me about what had happened there, we packed everything and drove north. She had family in Canada where we stayed for a few weeks. Things were sort of good up there until one night, I felt a Goa'uld approaching but I had no chance to warn anyone before they began to fire at the house. I took a bullet to the leg but managed to get out through a window, I stole one of their cars and used it to go further north to Alaska. From there I took a fishing trolley down to Hawaii and switched to a cargo ship headed for Chile. We were attacked by Goa'uld death gliders off the coast of Ecuador, we fled in the lifeboats. I heard one of the boats made it to shore, a plasma bolt hit my boat and threw us into the water. I was rescued by a small group of resistance fighters, I'm still not sure what language they spoke but I lived with them for a while. One day they left for what I think was an attack on something, a week later they still hadn't returned so I took a jeep and some gear and left. Things kept going that way, anyone putting up a fight died or vanished around me so I kept moving around until word of the Goa'uld's defeat reached me, by that time I was deep in the Colombian rainforest. Then came the S.E.N, things were still horrible with very little food and medicine but it was a big improvement over the Goa'uld so I stopped running and settled down in a small village as a medic. When the S.E.N were overthrown things got much better, we got at least one decent meal each week and enough medicine to go around but I never knew that you were with the Lanteans. Had I known I would have sought you out earlier."

"Sounds like you've been through a lot," Daniel said. He was more than a bit taken back by how much food she was eating while still managing to talk coherently. "Sam will be thrilled to see you, Jack too I think, and Teal'c, though you'll have to wait until Teal'c returns from Lega."

"So what have you been up to Daniel? Are you a Lantean? Are Lanteans really aliens?" She kept pushing down food and had already gotten through one of the trays.

"I've been getting a lot of frequent flyer miles going between Pegasus and Earth," Daniel said.

"Cool, so what about the Lantean part?"

"Well I guess technically they are aliens, the Alterra created them in Pegasus but they are also humans, just a lot more evolved. I on the other hand am Alterran."

"So you're actually an alien?"

"No, I was born on Earth and like many others I was turned into a Lantean since it's a more effective form when working with our technology. I was then chosen to be further evolved into an Alterra. Now the case of Alterrans being aliens is hard, they came from another galaxy but lived on Earth for a long time before going to Pegasus. So while they are from another galaxy they are the original inhabitants of Earth, humans are the third and most primitive evolution of the Alterran genome."

"So if the Alterra are more advanced why did they make Lanteans?"

"Because for some reason as the evolutionary complexity and advancement increases the birth rate rapidly decreases which means that after a time it is hard to maintain or increase the population. When the Alterra came to Pegasus they were far too few, so they created a more primitive race that could grow in numbers fast enough to be useful. So the Lanteans were created. The humans of both Pegasus and the Milky Way were created before the Lanteans but because of the relative primitiveness of humans we usually call them the third evolution."

"And why create humans if they could make more Lanteans?"

"Well the Alterra were dying from a plague that was slowly killing them, I guess they saw the galaxies as empty and wanted to see some life in them."

"It seems like a lot of work."

"Yes, but I guess you could say the Alterra are workaholics, we don't really have free time. But that's all ancient history," Daniel said with a small laugh.

At that time over a hundred soldiers came running into the mess hall and began to throw together a quick breakfast for themselves, less than a minute later the two Lieutenants began to order them out of the mess hall and to eat on the way.

"So what's up with only having like five people waiting outside?" Cassandra asked. She had finished the last of her food and was wiping away some crumbs.

"Well we interviewed some people and all the people we spoke with seemed mildly interested in moving across the galaxy. We expected maybe a hundred people or so to begin with until the first colonists could show that the galaxy is open for colonisation."

"So you're actually not prepared for this? You don't have the food you promised?"

"We don't have any food yet, not for a hundred people, not for a thousand, not for ten thousand people. But we have technology that can create food instantly, it's a short term solution but it will do for this. I will personally see to it that we send all the food you will need."

"So it can be done? We can actually establish a colony?"

"Of course, we Alterra don't make promises we can not keep. I'll take you to see Sam and Jack."

"Where are they exactly?"

"Jack's in Atlantis and Sam's commanding one of our warships." Together they got up and left the mess hall.

"Sam said Atlantis is in another galaxy? Can we really go there?"

"It'll only take a few seconds to travel to Pegasus, I do it at least once every week." He tapped his combadge and connected to the control room. "This is Daniel, please send a message to Colonel Carter and General O'Neill. I need to see them in person as soon as possible, it is not life or death but I want them to hurry up. I'm heading for the Nest right away so have the gate ready when I arrive, if the ship is in hyperspace I want the gate ready to dial Atlantis."

-Copy that Doctor,- a voice replied. It took a few seconds before it continued. -We're standing ready to dial the Nest.-

"Are you in command or something? People seem to do as you say."

"Sort of. The Alterra are the leaders and I'm an Alterra, which means that I'm in charge but I'm not their commander. Their commander is Colonel Sheppard who you met outside, he's one his way to becoming an Alterra but his skills are more military than diplomatic so I get to overrule him on most things."

"Sounds like you're their actual leader."

"I just deal with the larger decisions, the Sheppard handles the day-to-day activities around here."

They walked into the gate room just as the gate activated.

"The wormhole to the Nest is established Doctor," one of the techs informed.

"Thank you, excellent timing," Daniel said. Next to him Cassandra was starting to hesitate but he led her forward to the gate.

"Is it safe?" she asked.

"Perfectly, I've traveled through it probably a thousand times by now and I've traveled between galaxies at least a hundred. Just breath out before stepping inside." He gently led her forward and into the gate.

On the other side of the gate Sam, Jack and Mokar were waiting.

"What's so im..." Sam began, she stopped as soon as she recognised Cassandra. A moment later she ran forward and lifted Cassandra from the floor in a tight hug.

Jack was right behind her but only ruffled her hair. "It's good to see you Cassandra."

"It's good to see you too Sam," Cassandra replied and returned the hug.

"You may wish to move," Mokar said when the gate began to dial behind them.

"Are we interrupting something?" Daniel asked hesitantly.

"We're expecting a delegation from the people of Novus," Mokar explained. "The Destiny expedition made contact a few weeks ago and have been helping their people back to their colony. Their leadership has finally organised enough to send a delegation to us."

"I'm sorry, had I known I would have waited."

"It's fine Doctor Jackson," Mokar said. He looked over at Sam and Jack who were busy talking to Cassandra. "It seems both Colonel Carter and General O'Neill are busy at the moment, perhaps you'd be willing to join me in their place?"

Daniel shone up like a lighthouse. "I'd love to, the chance to meet a new people is always a good experience."

"Good."

The gate activated and five men and women in dark brown leather clothes stepped through. They each gave a deep bow to both Daniel and Mokar.

One of them stepped forward. "I am Yaozu."

"I am Mokar of the Alterra," Mokar said and returned the bow. "This is Doctor Jackson, also of the Alterra."

"A pleasure to meet you," Daniel said.

"The pleasure is ours. To finally be able to meet our ancestors kin and see where they come from is a great honor," Yaozu said.

"It will be some time before we can take you to Earth, Earth was devastated by an attack a few years ago. We are still rebuilding and until it is safe I will not risk anyone's lives other than our own," Mokar said. He could clearly see the disappointment in Yaozu eyes. "But there are several other locations we can show you."

"We would offer our help but now that all of our people are returned we are even cannibalising our spaceships for resources," one of the women said.

Mokar help up his hand to stop them. "We have what we need to restore Earth and we simply need time. Now while this ship is most likely the safest place in this galaxy it is also a ship of war with a war to fight. It will be better to have these talks in our city, Atlantis, where we have the proper facilities and luxuries for a meeting like this." With a mental command he dialed the gate to Atlantis.

"Please, it would be an honor to see this city."


End file.
